Ocean has a gay panic

PerfectDolls (Ocean x Penny) writing I did under the cut

“UNO!” Penny screeched, plopping the final card down on the deck. This started a chain of events that could only have happened in a group of six people with less mental stability than they had collective heads. 

First, Mischa threw his cards across the floor in anger because he was a sore loser, knocking over his glass of Pepsi and cursing loudly in Ukrainian, then in Dutch, then Russian, then— “FUCK!”

”Language!” Ocean had snapped. She tossed him a roll of paper towels, which proceeded to miss and hit Noel in the head. He clapped a hand over the spot and Mischa immediatly turned to make sure his boyfriend was okay. Constance picked up the paper towels and started to mop up the soda spill. 

Meanwhile, Penny was playing 52-pickup with Mischa’s spilled cards, huffing about having to clean up even though she’d won. 

Constance triumphantly held up the now soaking wet, caramel-hued paper towels, then ordered Penny to get some bleach for the carpet. Penny hissed a swear at her then retreated to the kitchen. 

Noel and Mischa were kissing again, hands roaming each others’ bodies. Ricky was filming it for blackmail purposes of course, and Ocean watched the entire thing unravel. 

“Noel! Mischa!” She slapped them both with her slipper. “Keep it PG, please!” 

“How am I supposed to keep kisses PG when he is so beautiful?” Mischa whined. It was hard to tell if he was serious or just bothering Ocean. 

“I don’t know! Just peck him on the cheek or something!” She snapped.

”How? His lips are too-“

”Mischa.” Ocean locked eyes with him. “Shut it. If you two are going to kiss, make it gentle and-“

They immediatly started making out again. 

Ocean rubbed her temples. Ricky, who had previously been lost in some movie or another on his phone, looked up at her with a sympathetic smile. 

Maybe we could play a game, he signed, might get the love-birds to chill for a minute or two.

”You saw what happened with Uno.” She said forlornly. “Any competitive game we have just pisses Mischa off. We can’t do anything right.” 

It does not have to be competitive, Ricky argued. We could play truth or dare. 

”Ricky, you’re brilliant.” Ocean clapped her hands together. “Guys! Come back to the living room, we’re playing truth or dare whether you like it or not!” 

Reluctantly in some cases, the rest of the choir agreed. They gathered into a tight circle around the coffee table. 

It was my idea, so I’m starting. Ricky stated. He turned to Noel. Truth or dare? 

Noel pondered this for a moment. “Truth.”

When is the last time you wet the bed?

Noel’s face went bright red. “Of all questions to ask, that one?”

Yes.

“Not since like…fifth grade.”

”Fifth grade?” Penny questioned. “That’s a little bit recent if you ask me!”

”He was a chronic bed-wetter in elementary school.” Constance said sadly, as if she were notifying the group of a loss in the family, to which Noel blushed even more and pressed his face into Mischa’s chest. 

After a good three minutes of sitting in awkward silence, Noel looked up from his spot in the crook of his boyfriend’s arm. “Constance. Truth or dare?”

”Truth.” Constance said immediatly. Ricky signed out: CHICKEN! But nobody seemed to notice.

”If you had to cut one of your friends out of your life, who would it be?” 

Constance pondered this for a moment. “Uhm…” she glanced at Ocean. “I’ll skip.” 

Ocean glared at her. “No no. Answer.” Constance’s face went pale. “No! Uhm…Mischa, truth or dare?” 

Mischa grinned. “Dare.” 

Constance thought about this for a moment. “Show us the last photo in your phone.”

Mischa opened his photos app. He tapped the first one—a particularly unflattering shot of Noel. Noel glared at him, but Mischa pressed a kiss to his lips and Noel curled up again. 

“Penny, your go.” Mischa said, stroking Noel’s hair as the shorter boy stared up at him, annoyed, but didn’t get up. 

“Dare!” Penny beamed. “I’m no chicken.” 

Mischa stretched out on his place on the sofa. “Kiss the hottest person in the room.” 

“That’s a little extreme.” Noel noted, worriedly glancing at Mischa, then staring back at Penny. “I love it.” 

Penny took a moment to gather her composure, stood up…

..And advanced on Ocean. 

Within seconds, their lips met in a flurry of passion. Both were blushing like hell, and Ocean could see Ricky and Constance staring with wide eyes. Mischa was laughing, and Noel had a very ‘I told you so’ look on his face. 

Penny’s lips were soft and supple. Her breath, which Ocean was well aware of as it was blowing in her direction, smelled of bubblegum. Ocean hated that she was enjoying this. 

Penny pulled away, panting. Their eyes met. 

“Woah, keep it PG there.” Mischa smirked. And at that point, Ocean was too flustered to say another word. 

She felt herself getting lightheaded. The entire group, including Penny, was staring at her. That was it. 

Ocean passed out on the couch. 

“Ocean! Ocean!” She awoke to a hand on her shoulder, shaking her vigorously. “Come on, asshole, get up!”

”Language!” Her eyes flashed open. Noel was hovering over her. The others seemed to have given them some space. 

 He helped Ocean up into a sitting position. “You were out for a solid ten minutes.” Noel explained, “I thought you were dying. A little disappointing, to be honest.” 

She didn’t even have the wits to punch him in the arm. “What was that? It’s…it’s a sin! But…I liked it?”

Noel smirked. “Ocean, answer me honestly here. Have you, ah, ever felt attraction to women? Because it kind of seems like…”

”Noel! Are you implying that I’m a…a lesbian?” 

“I don’t know. Are you a lesbian?”

 Ocean whined and kicked her feet. “I don’t know! It’s like…Penny’s really, really pretty. And… I liked when she kissed me. But it’s wrong. I’ve never…”

Noel put a finger to his lips. “You and I haven’t seen eye to eye on something since third grade when we both agreed that the pink Power Ranger was the best one, but you know…we’re still friends. And I think maybe you need some help coming out.”

”Coming…out.” She winced. The words felt odd coming from her mouth. 

Noel nodded. “The others are in the kitchen, making popcorn. I wanted to be here when you got up to talk you through it. I have experience. Now uhm…do you like dudes too?”

”I’ve never thought too hard about it.” She admitted. “I was always pretty focused on my education, never really bothered thinking too much about boys or girls. But now that we’ve graduated St. Cassian’s…”

”You find yourself thinking about Penny more and more?”

”Exactly.”

Noel’s gaze softened. “Yeah, Ocean…if it makes you feel better, I took a while to come out too. Now go get your girl, you horrible succubus.” 

Ocean flashed an angered look at him. She stepped out into the kitchen, where Constance was yelling at an annoyed Mischa to get out the vacuum to clean up their mess of popcorn and corn chips, Ricky was frantically signing every cuss word he knew, and Penny was gazing wistfully out the window. 

“Penny…” Ocean tapped her on the shoulder. “Can I have a word with you?”

Penny turned to her, those doe-like eyes searing into her soul. Her lashes fluttered, making Ocean’s heart leap. 

“Of course.” Penny smiled. She got up and led Ocean to a private area, the large closet in the hallway.

”What is it? Is it about the kiss? I’m really sorry, I probably should have asked for consent. Never again, I swear.” Penny said, hands held above her chest defensively. 

“No, no,” Ocean waved her hand dismissively. “That’s not it…well, it is, but…” she gulped, “Noel talked me through it a little bit. I’m not even close to understanding who I am, not yet, but what I do know is…I like you, Penny.”

Penny gave a soft, gentle smile. Her hand moved to Ocean’s cheek, letting the redhead nuzzle into it. “I like you too. And you’re sure that’s okay?”

”To be honest? I feel sort of guilty about it, but…that’s only natural, right?”

Penny chuckled lightly. “That’s right. Now…can I kiss you again? With consent this time!”

Ocean smiled up at her. She stood up on her tippy-toes, and her lips touched Penny’s for one more blissful moment.

Snap! 

The girls turned around at the sound of a camera flash. Ricky was standing there with a smug grin, his phone in his hand. 

He tucked it away then carefully signed out a single sentence:

I knew it. 

20 Questions for fic Writers!

tagged by @rosieposiepuddingnpie, thank you friend :)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

139

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

551,651

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Actively, Buddie (and I'm still holding on to Steddie with both hands but my brain hasn't cooperated lately). Inactively (hopefully I'll return one day) - Sterek/Teen Wolf, DexNursey, SamBucky, JayTim, Pynch

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Queer Robins Club - Batman, 4.9k kudos Dustin's Dad(s) - Steddie, 3.5k kudos On the Ropes - Sterek, 2.3k kudos Like James Dean, Only Sadder - Sterek, 2.1k kudos I'm Yelling Tinder - DexNursey, 1.5k kudos

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to! There was a couple years where I wasn't really writing for fic or reading it and I kind of just ignored Ao3 and came back to like 500 comments that I didn't respond to, but I read all of them and loved them. I respond to all of them now though and did before I went inactive.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don't typucally write angsty endings. I typically write fic because I want a happy ending. I did write a very angsty, very short first person fic from Stiles POV at the end of Teen Wolf? I guess that would be it. With a Wimper is also my least read fic in terms of hits lol.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

ALL OF THEM! I write happy endings baby! If I had to pick just one I'd probably say my favourite Steddie fic I wrote - Baby on Board just because it's a prequel to a very happy fic and the end of BoB is also happy and hopeful.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not recently. Back in the days of a very active Sterek fandom I had some, usually from people who didn't ship Sterek. It was always wild to me because that meant you intentionally commented on a fic for a ship you didn't ship just to be mean?

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do, but not as often as I used to. Typically my smut ends up also being sappy, but sometimes I dabble in bandage or light D/s stuff.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

One time I wrote Stiles Stilinski/Jason Todd and it was very fun for me and hopefully for the like 500 people who read it. - if you're interested it's Back Alley Deals lol

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

yeah, but it got taken down after

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! I've had some wonderful folks translate some of my fics to Russian, Mandarin, and Ukrainian and I think a few other languages I'm not rememebring

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, I did the jaytim WIP exchange which I think counts as co-writing. We just wrote in shifts lol

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Probably Sterek simply because I can always go back to it like a warm little blanket and because I was so in it for so many years.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

probably my Buddie double timeloop fic :( maybe one day i'll finish it

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think dialogue and being able to capture a character's voice

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Conflict probably - I just want everyone to get along so I really struggle to write it, but I do write it and that's what counts

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I struggle with it because I'm only English speaking. I think if I get better at French or Spanish I'd be more comfortable with it, but for now I don't like relying on Google translate.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I think the first fic I ever posted was harry potter, posted on some random HP message board in the very early 2000s

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

oh this is hard!!! I'm gonna cheat and give you favs from 6 ships I've written lol Like James Dean, only Sadder (Sterek) wet your lips (and smile for the camera) (Buddie) It's Always You (SamBucky) Baby on Board (Steddie) Baby give me S'more (Jaytim) Hey Now You're a (NHL) All-Star (DexNursey)

tagging (no pressure) - @thewolvesof1998 @loserdiaz @monsterrae1 @eddiebabygirldiaz @daffi-990 @spotsandsocks @devirnis @acountrygirlsfun @forthewolves @generatorcat @anxieteandbiscuits @inell @clotpolesonly @weewootruck and anyone else who wants to share

As the Seasons Grey | Chapter Forty: If You Lie Down With Me

ao3 link

Valentina's apartment was a cozy one, about the size of a small studio with a big window that peered out to the river over the crowns of the other buildings in her neighborhood. She had tucked her bed into the far corner of the front room; right across from that was her desk with a can for her pencils and a tiny neon clock. On the left side of the room stood a small nightstand with a small silvery lamp and a small television on top. Next to the nightstand stood a tall bookshelf with all manner of books, several of which were in Ukrainian, Russian, Romanian, and Spanish. Dark navy blue curtains with golden stars adorned the window, and the spindly chair before her desk had matching velvet cushions; the entire place smelled of cinnamon and cloves. Her parents and grandparents lived on either side of her place, even though Christine pictured them all living in one giant house together.

“Are your parents home?” Christine asked her.

“I don't think they are,” she replied as she placed her keys on the desk. “They both work at the laundromat across the street and it gets a lot tougher than you would think. And today being Friday, my grandparents are probably at church right now.”

“I notice you don't have much of an accent,” Christine remarked.

“My grandparents definitely have accents,” Valentina said. “You know, my grandpa has a big Ukrainian accent, and my grandma will often curse people out in Romanian without them knowing.” The two of them laughed at that. “My dad was born here in Syracuse, and I was born here in the Big Apple, and my mom was born and raised in Bucharest. Sometimes I'll slip in a few words from both sides and people will look at me funny.” Christine then glanced around the small front room with her book bag over her shoulder and her black case in her hand as if she awaited another ride somewhere.

“Make yourself comfortable, Chris! You're a friend and you're a guest in my place.”

“There's... not much room is all,” she confessed.

“Here, let me help—” Valentina took her case and leaned it between the side of the desk and the nightstand, and then Christine handed her bag to her, and she slung it over the back of the chair before the desk. She then returned to her with her hands clasped together as if to say a prayer to her.

“You really are something,” Christine remarked with a smile on her face.

“It's basic hospitality,” Valentina insisted with a shrug. “I was taught to be hospitable and welcoming to guests and friends. You're my guest. Be my guest.”

“Where should I hang up my jacket?” Christine asked as she ran the pull of the zipper down her front.

“Right in here—”

She took off her jacket part of the way, and Valentina held onto the shoulders and picked it up before it fell onto the floor. Christine watched her haul it into the next room, which she saw was the kitchenette: right within her line of sight stood the bathroom door. Valentina hung the jacket up on a hook on the back of the bathroom door, and then she returned to Christine.

“An absolute trooper,” she declared with a slight smile.

“Again, just doing what I was raised to do.” Valentina then kicked off her shoes and gestured to the chair at the desk and the bed, and Christine took the former for herself.

“Do I have to take off my shoes?”

“If you want,” Valentina replied. “I usually take mine off just to wind down after a long day. I should also tell you that Sabrina and I both have exactly three—” She held up three fingers. “—essays to write. And they're all due this coming week.”

“Holy shit,” Christine gaped at her as they sat down at the same time. “I'm so sorry.”

“Nah, it's alright. It really is. Sabrina and I are both more or less used to doing a lot of work. When she and I were in high school, we took five advanced placement classes all at once.” Christine raised her eyebrows at that. “Yeah. That was... that was something. We were in A.P. English, A.P. United States history, A.P. Biology, and A.P. Pre Calculus. She was in A.P. Psychology, I was in A.P. Spanish.”

“Was that everything you took?”

“Nah, at our school, we had six classes. Her sixth was a free period so she could go home and have lunch with her grandmother and her sister. I took art.”

“You took art, really!”

“Oh, yeah! I had it at the end of the day so it was a nice... rest of the left hemisphere.” She then turned her attention to Christine's black case slipped between the side of the desk and the nightstand.

“So I saw this black case here,” she began. “May I ask what's in there?”

“Drawings, of course. Big and small ones—I've also got a few pencils in there.”

“Do you mind sharing at all? I mean, I don't have that much experience in the field of art, but I do have a deep appreciation of it.” Christine shifted her weight in the chair, and then she reached for the case. Carefully, she ran the zipper along the top, and she revealed the drawings inside of there. She unsheathed the one based of the boy on the stool, to which Valentina raised her eyebrows at the mere sight.

“Is this—”

“Well, it’s based off of the two of them,” Christine explained. “Off of Chris and Alex. I’m not even kidding, they look similar to each other. The one difference is Chris had brown eyes and no gray streak in his hair. His hair was also a touch more curly, too.”

“Wow,” Valentina breathed as she held onto the bottom corners of the paper. “I have to say, Chris, your shading is honestly decent.” She lifted her gaze from the paper to her face. “How long have you been drawing?”

“This is actually my first time partaking in an art class,” she replied with a shrug of her shoulders.

“You do have something inside of you,” Valentina assured her.

“That’s what Alex says.”

“You should listen to him.”

“I often do, too.”

“I can't believe you haven't told Alex yet,” Valentina noted.

“Like I said, I keep meaning to but I just forget about it,” Christine assured her. “He takes up my entire attention span when he's in the room.” Valentina snickered at that.

“Do you know where Chris is buried?”

“Way out on Long Island in a Jewish cemetery. Yeah, we went out there at eleven o'clock at night while it was snowing. We got there, and we found him, and I just about had frozen tears coming back home. And then Nelly got in a cab and disappeared into the night.” She turned her head and peered out the window to the low roofs out there beyond the apartment complex as well as the dark waters of the Hudson River. Small white flurries fluttered down from the cold violet sky overhead. Nighttime was upon them.

“I'd hate for you to head on back home,” Valentina confessed. “Especially when it's snowing again, and we're facing a blizzard on top of that. I have some cinnamon babka in my fridge and some rice and beans in the cupboard. We could stay in for a nice warm dinner and then we’ll watch a movie given it’s Friday night.”

“I don't know, Val, it's awful cramped in here,” she said with a quick glimpse about the room.

“Hey, if I can have my brothers in here for a week, I can have you for a night,” Valentina assured her.

“Where am I gonna sleep?” Christine demanded, and Valentina climbed up, stooped down to the edge of the bed, and tugged on something right out of sight. A little cot bed rolled out from underneath the main one, complete with a fitted sheet and a blanket on top.

“I have a spare pillow in the closet in the bathroom,” she assured her.

“Is it comfortable?” Christine asked.

“Oh, yeah! I've taken naps on it a bunch of times before and I'm always well rested.” She then dusted off her jeans and the front of her blouse with her hands. She eyed Christine’s snugly tied shoes and looked on at her with a look of determination.

“Really, make yourself at home!” she insisted as she ruffled her hair. “—I'm gonna take a shower and change my clothes, and then I can get started on dinner.”

“I don’t have my toothbrush or my pajamas here,” Christine pointed out.

“No worries there! I’ve got both in my bathroom.”

“Oh, excellent!” Valentina bowed into the kitchen as she stripped off her top, and Christine stooped down in the chair to unlace her shoes. She thought about what to write in her new journal, especially when she had only kept one a few times in her life. There was one that she kept up until the day that Chris had died, but she had long thrown it out. She recalled tucking it under bed and never touching it ever again until she moved into her own apartment, and then after that, she had no memory of what she did with it.

The shower in the bathroom whirred on, and she turned to her bag for the robin’s egg blue journal, fresh off the shelf in the school bookstore. She ran her hand across the front cover, as smooth as the skin on Alex’s neck, and then she opened it up to the front page.

Such a thing that she should have participated in while she was in high school and the Pereiras grappled with the loss of Chris, and yet her mind remained blank and fixated elsewhere. An entire four years of life, left behind in a haze of gray.

“I want to remember,” she muttered to herself.

She knew she had nothing to hide, especially from Alex. To tell him of her day that day and the next five. It should be easy.

She picked out a pencil and lay the journal down on the desk’s surface before her. There was a part of her that wanted to hold back the truth, especially since this was going to be in an essay that he would see within the next two weeks rather than in the safety of her own private journal. But she figured to start from the top, complete with the date being the middle of January, just a week past the three month mark to her thirtieth birthday.

It seemed wild to think that she looked at thirty in April, but she knew that she would have to face it head on just like with her twenties.

Christine began from that morning, when she and Alex had some time alone together. All without even thinking about it, she recalled what she had done with him, from the moment Eric strode out of the classroom to their departure with each other: she also added in a note that she would have to see the next trio show once rehearsals were wrapped up. She then hesitated for a second as she thought back to those moments after as well as when she reached Valentina’s apartment. Everything she could have felt from the second Alex blew her a kiss to the second she sat down there, and she worried about glossing over any details.

Time to bust out of an old habit.

She closed her eyes and thought about seeing Alex walk the other way. She thought about his body, the way he looked from behind, the curvature of his back and his hips, the shape of his thighs and his legs from behind. For a second, she felt closer to Anaïs Nin. She wrote it all down before her. It was going to be a love letter to him for when the essay was due.

Captain Howdy popped into her mind right then, from the dark silhouette to the fact Christine didn’t even know what she looked like; and yet the mere thought of her only made her heart pound in her chest and her fingers curl. She also couldn’t resist the tears in her eyes.

She wondered if that would be good enough to write down, but the next thing she knew, she was scribbling it all down.

“I don’t like her,” she whispered aloud. “She needs to fuck off to nowhere’s-ville and never come back.”

Christine set down her pencil and let out a low whistle. The bathroom door opened, and Christine closed the journal. Valentina strode into the room with a towel wrapped around the crown of her head and a little white camisole with matching silk pajama bottoms: the smell of apples followed her out of the bathroom into the front part of the apartment. She then handed Christine some emerald green pajamas.

“These are too big for me,” she told her. “And they’ve been in the closet, but I promise they’re clean.”

“Thank you so much!”

Valentina then ducked back into the kitchen to prepare dinner for the two of them, and Christine put on the pajamas: the shorts were a bit snug on her but she could wear them without any problem. Valentina then returned to the room and took the remote control off the top of the nightstand.

“Friday night, there’s gonna be some things on TV tonight, surely,” she declared. “What do you like?”

“It’s been a long time since I actually really watched something on TV,” Christine confessed. “I don’t even own one. I’m usually reading or going out.” 

“Sometimes it’s just best to tuck in and do nothing for a bit,” Valentina assured her as she clicked on the television and to the guide. “My grandpa got me into a lot of older shows from when my parents were kids. We always like to watch Bonanza, Get Smart, I Dream of Jeanie, all of that after school when I was in going into middle school. I also liked to watch things from the Eighties and the Nineties. Ah! Here we go. Rerun of Buffy.”

“Wow, I haven’t watched Buffy since the beginning,” Christine remarked.

“Reruns of Buffy and then new episode of Charmed,” Valentina continued with a smile on her face, and the two of them took their spot in unison on the bed with their backs to the wall.

“Just out of curiosity, is this your first sleepover?” Christine asked her as she realized they were met with an onslaught of commercials.

“It’s my first in a long time,” Valentina said. “Sabrina and I had one at my grandparents’ place when we were freshmen in high school. Do you remember having any with Chris?”

“Can’t say I do, to be honest,” Christine confessed. “Like I said, I blocked out most of everything that he and I did as well as most of the time after his death.”

“Wow, so a huge chunk of your life is just wiped from your memory,” Valentina declared.

“Yeah. I wish I wrote about it…” Christine’s voice trailed off as she looked on at the journal on the top of the desk.

“I wish there was a way to slay the vampire and demon inside your mind so you could gain some clarity,” Valentina confessed. They fell into silence as another commercial came on.

“Could you teach me some things in Ukrainian and Romanian?” Christine asked her.

“Let's see... let's start out with the basics,” Valentina began with a twinkle in her eye. “For Ukrainian, 'hello' is 'pryvit.' 'Pryvit yak ty' is 'hello, how are you.'

“‘Pryvit,’” Christine repeated. “‘Pryvit yak ty’.”

“'Thank you' is 'dyakuyu'. 'Thank you very much' is 'velyke spasybi'.”

“Say it again?”

“'Velyke spasybi',” Valentina repeated. “It's a little tricky because there are hidden 'y' sounds in there that English speakers aren't used to, but it should roll right off the tongue, though. 'Velyke spasybi', like 'vee yell key spya see bee.'”

“'Vee yell key spya see bee.' 'Vee yell key spya see bee.'”

“Now say it quickly. It should roll right off the tongue like a waterfall.”

“‘Vee yell key spya see bee,’” Christine repeated.

“There we go! You know how to be polite should you go to Kiev, now.”

“What's 'I love you'?”

“'I love you' is ya tebe lyublyu. In Russian, it's ya tebya lyublyu.”

“What is it in Romanian?”

“Te iubesc. Not as romantic, but it is what it is.”

“I think it’s very romantic,” Christine confessed. “It’s like… Transylvanian love.” Valentina chuckled at that.

“‘Transylvanian love’ sounds like a lost novel in my uncle’s library,” she cracked, and they both laughed at that.“'Thank you' is multumesc. 'Hello' and 'goodbye' are 'buna ziua' and 'la revedere' respectively.”

“It is one of the Romance languages,” Christine reminded her as the commercials ended.

“Wrong kind of romance,” Valentina pointed out. They fell back into silence for a moment before Valentina ventured back into the kitchen to put the pasta in the boiling water, and then she came back to the bed. Another commercial break, much to their chagrin.

“What does his woman even do, anyway?” Valentina asked out of the blue.

“Who? Alex's?”

“Yeah. She just... seems sort of random, like I think back to when I saw her at the fruit stand. She seems like a housewife type and—believe me, that's not a good thing.”

“She's an architect,” Christine replied.

“My uncle George worked with architects for a time,” Valentina said with a sneer. “He said they were some of the mouthiest, most disrespectful, most arrogant people he's ever met. I think there was one he said was actually an okay person, but she was bit of a diva, though. But she was also the only one who treated him with an iota of politeness, like she gave him the basic 'please' and 'thank you' to him, because he was a supervisor and she had to be kind to him lest she lost her job. Surprises me how many women are architects, too. It makes me feel bad a little.”

“I think it's just a field thing, rather than—what you think it is,” Christine suggested with a shrug. “I do agree on the whole 'housewife' type thing, though. Going to a fruit stand and mentioning his name for a discount. They're getting married so in a way it checks out. She probably tells them she's his wife and she's using it to get fruit at a discount.”

“They're getting married, really?”

“Yeah. Alex told me they've been engaged... I forget how long now. But he proposed to her some time ago and she said 'yes', and she's basically been jerking him around for it because he struggles with money. And I guess with this new position at the school, a full time position teaching French literature, he's finally...” She closed her eyes and fetched up a sigh. “...bringing home the bacon.”

“You gotta stop that wedding,” Valentina quipped.

“Thing is I don't really know how,” Christine confessed. “He seems madly in love with her and I'm trying my damnedest to... you know, change his mind about her just by being myself, but it's an uphill battle, though.”

“Is he in love with you?”

“I think so. I told him I was in love with him earlier, and he sort of... tiptoed around it in reciprocating his feelings towards me. I could feel it, though. I could feel that he was feeling the same way I'm feeling.”

“You should try and get it out of him,” Valentina suggested. “You know. Get alone with him again when you see him again. I've seen a notch in his armor before, it's often in plain sight.”

“He did assign us to a week of accounting how we feel,” Christine recalled. “Accounting it through a journal of sorts—that's why I bought a journal at the bookstore—and then injecting it into a paper.”

“Make some of it about him,” Valentina suggested as she stood to her feet again. “Tell him your feelings that way. Through writing. I have no clue how you would do it in an academic sense because I'm used to being incredibly proper and formal in my writing.” She bowed back into the kitchen to prepare the sauce for their pasta. Within a minute, she returned to the bed.

“Man, you work fast,” Christine noted.

“It all pretty much cooks itself,” Valentina said with a shrug. “It’s the babka that’s a bitch to prepare. My grandma always helps make that.”

“Is it a cake or—?”

“Jewish Ukrainian cake. It’s more like a challah bread or a croissant than a cake, but it’s delicious, though, especially the chocolate or the cinnamon.” She ducked into the kitchen yet again, that time for the plating, and she returned to the front room with a plate full of pasta and some kind of homemade sauce for Christine.

“Wow, thank you! This ain’t no spaghetti and meatballs, that’s for certain.”

“It’s like that but more,” Valentina promised as she bowed back for her plate.

Christine actually found the evening wonderful, especially when the sun went down and the two of them curled up on the bed together and watched the little television on the nightstand until a movie came on after the second episode of Charmed. After dinner, Valentina put the babka in the oven to warm it up after being in the refrigerator all day and the night before.

“When’s your birthday, by the way?” Valentina asked her at one point.

“April fifteenth.”

“October twenty-seventh.” She raised her hand and then cupped it to imitate the claw of a scorpion. “Aries and Scorpio are like the two sisters you would think don’t get along but they do. Do you know your moon sign?”

“My what?”

“The moon. Your emotions. Your needs. How you feel on a regular basis as it underpins your personality.”

“I have no clue,” Christine confessed with a shake of her head. “I don’t really know astrology and I prefer astronomy, anyway.” Valentina sauntered over to her bookshelf, where she picked a narrow blue book out from in between an atlas and a Romanian book.

“April fifteenth, you said?” she asked her as she opened to the inside of the front cover.

“Yeah.”

Paper on top of paper caught Christine’s ear, and she tilted her head to the side as to what she was doing. She moved something again, and then her face lit up.

“Gemini! Moon in Gemini. Mine’s Leo.”

“Is that good?”

“Yes, it is!” Valentina took her seat again and showed Christine the series of astrolabe wheels inside the front cover, all three of them interlocked with each other like gears. But she saw how they worked, as the big one showed the twelve houses of the birth chart where the other two showed the positions of the planets as well as the years. “Do you remember what time you were born?”

“Three in the afternoon, if I remember correctly,” Christine replied. Valentina slid the big one around, and Christine spotted the clock finely circumscribed around the rim in light silver paint.

“Good ol’ Virgo Rising,” Valentina decreed. “The worker bee, the brainiac, the one who always wears the green jacket. You have Neptune in your fourth house and Mercury opposite Uranus: alcoholic parents since your fourth house is the house of home life, and foggy memory of your childhood and when you finally do uncover it, it’ll be sudden and painful, especially with Uranus right at zero degrees Scorpio in your third house. Neptune is also opposite your moon. Did you have your emotional boundaries violated before?”

“I don’t remember,” Christine confessed, unsure as to where she was going with this.

“Mars in Pisces in your seventh house… tucked away your desires and what you want in another person, and it’ll come out subconsciously.”

“Whoa,” Christine blurted out.

“Pluto square Saturn and trine Venus—yikes.” Valentina turned her attention back to Christine for a second. “You’re a totally hot babe but you’re intense as hell. Venus also rules your Midheaven, your tenth house and house of career and what you’re known for. Midheaven in Taurus, on top of a star known as ‘head of Medusa’ or the Demon Star. You’re methodical and attentive to what you want.”

“Sounds about right.”

“You’re also secretly artistic. And given the presence of Medusa, you’re also known to be independent and radical. The star is known for its powers of transformation and power itself, as Medusa was a goddess who became the snake-headed Gorgon who was decapitated and her head was used in battle. She was remembered for generations and she was an asset even after death. The monster. The goddess. The phoenix from the ashes.”

Right then, the movie started, and Valentina closed the book and lay it next to her, and yet Christine thought about what she said. It seemed so silly, and yet the way she spoke about it made her wonder if it was real at all, especially considering the matters of the moon. In a way, when she thought about Medusa, she thought about the times that she rejuvenated herself and pulled herself out of the cinders and the darkness into something new.

A part of her had to die so she could be reborn again. The barricades in her memory bank had to crumble and fall so she could reconnect with Chris again, even from beyond the grave.

The two of them stayed up until midnight eating the soft, spicy babka with some whipped cream, and Valentina offered her a spare toothbrush for the night. Once they brushed their teeth, and stacked their dishes in the sink, Christine lay on the spare bunk under Valentina’s bed with the soft blanket up to her chin and the plush pillow right under her head.

“Wow, you were right, this is comfy,” she told her. “Nice and warm, too.”

“You would think you’d be freezing down there, but you’re not, though!” Valentina pulled the curtains, and then she switched off the light. Using the light from outside, she climbed over the spare into her bed. The blankets rustled as she adjusted herself to find the right spot. She then groaned in her throat and relaxed.

“Oh, yeah, this is nice,” Christine remarked. “How do you say ‘good night’ in both languages?”

“Ukrainian is ‘Nadobranich’. Romanian, it’s ‘noapte bună’.”

“I like those, especially the the second one. Noapte bună, Valentina.”

“Noapte buna, frumoasa mea prietena.”

“Wow.” Christine chuckled at that. They fell into momentary silence when Christine spoke again.

“Valentina?”

“Hm?”

“What do you think I should do in stopping Alex’s wedding, besides getting him to fess up to me?”

“Well, I think there’s a bunch of ways but one that comes to mind immediately is just standing up during the ceremony to say you object. Another one is getting her drunk as hell under the table so she’s got a terrible hangover the day of the wedding and will want to call it off.”

“Don’t really wanna wait that long and I don’t know about that last one, like… she could see through it.”

“Honey, I’m Romanian. One of our specialties is wine and something like Pilsner. We tasted blood from the Soviets and then Ceausescu. We’re the original vampires. My grandparents and my mother escaped the communists after World War Two by boat and got the hell out of Dodge when they reached Greece. I know a thing or two about standing up to mind-fucking pieces of shit like that. The Ukrainian in me will come after her lock, stock, and barrel.” She paused for a second. “When did you say it was?”

“Fourth of July.”

“Ooh, yeah, that is a ways off. Um…” Another pause. “We have time to create a plan, and—” She yawned. “—let’s ruminate over it in the morning.”

“Good idea.”

Christine rolled over onto her side and closed her eyes.

Next thing she knew, she awoke to the narrow ribbon of gray sunlight through the curtains as well as a cold spot on the tip of her nose. Nevertheless, she was toasty warm under the blanket. Valentina was still sound asleep when she lifted her head out from under the blanket for a look at the clock.

“Six forty-five,” she whispered out, and she lay her head back down on the pillow. There was a part of her that wanted to lay there all day, but she remembered that she was still a guest at Valentina’s apartment. Another five minutes.

Another five minutes in a warm soft bed like that felt like five seconds, especially once the main bed creaked and Valentina climbed over her head so she could walk to the bathroom. Christine opened her eyes again and sighed through her nose. She rolled over onto her back and gazed up at the ceiling for a few minutes. The faucet in the bathroom whirred, and then the door opened.

Valentina’s head emerged upside down over her, complete with her black hair dangled down from the sides of her head like a slightly disheveled curtain.

“Hi,” Christine said in a voice broken by sleep.

“Hi—I have to go back down to the school to talk to one of my counselors at eight,” she started.

“But it’s Saturday, the offices are closed,” Christine pointed out.

“He invited me for a chat, though. A round of coffee and some financial aid advice. I guess he was swamped yesterday.”

“Oh, I see. So no coffee this morning?” Valentina shook her head.

“I’ll buy you some, though!” she offered her.

“Aw, that’s sweet of you…” Christine sat up and almost rolled off the bed onto the carpet. She stood up and picked up the pillow, where Valentina tucked the bed under the main one. Christine made her way to the bathroom to brush her teeth again and change back into her clothes. She remembered to thank Valentina for the hospitality when they drove back to the school once she surfaced from there to fetch her shoes and her bag.

Valentina offered her a slice of the babka to take home, and Christine remembered the strawberries Alex had given her the day before.

“Ooh, yeah, that’d be good on the go—yes, please!”

Within time, the two women made their way back downstairs to the car and the fresh snow banks around the freshly plowed block, and right as Valentina’s parents were leaving.

“Work again?” Christine asked her at the sight of her wave to them.

“Fresh breakfast over at the bakery in the Upper East Side,” she replied as she took her keys out of her pocket. “Which means I’m going to have to hustle back here after my meeting.”

“By the way, um…” Christine paused as she stood before the passenger door. “Thank you for letting me spend the night last night.”

“I didn’t want you to go back while it was snowing,” Valentina told her as she unlocked the car. “I had a feeling you were going to miss the bus, and you looked alone there in the hallway. Virgo rising tends to look a little forlorn, but you did, especially.” Christine tucked her things in the backseat, and then they climbed into the dry front seats in unison, and they headed back down to the school.

“And you’re always welcome to have another sleepover,” Valentina said as they began down the block.

“I would be more than happy to! And we’re up the street from Nelly, too.”

“We’re up the street from Nelly, yeah!”

It took some time but they reached the school and the parking lot by the bookstore.

“You think you can handle it with a ride on the subway?” Valentina asked her as they climbed out.

“Oh, yeah! Like I said, I’ve been riding those things solo for a long time.”

Valentina threw her arms around her once she slung her bag over her shoulder.

“Thank you again,” Christine told her. “I’ll be back again before you know it.”

“Give Alex a hug for me,” Valentina said to her before they parted ways. Christine watched her go to the other side of the campus, when she heard a familiar voice behind her.

“God, are you serious?” Christine turned around and saw Alex with another counselor, one of the women from the registrar’s office.

“Yeah, completely serious,” she said. I” don’t believe it, either.”

“You mean to tell me I'm not gonna see Nelly for at least another couple of weeks?” And she shook her head.

“Nope, she's out until Valentine's Day,” the woman told him.

“Aw, man. How're we gonna have our pie, though?”

“I wish I knew, Professor. We’re all concerned for her, too.” Christine then strode up to him with her case in one hand and the container of babka in the other: Alex turned his head and his face lit up at the sight of her, especially once the woman walked away.

“Hey! Surprised to see you here.”

“I spent the night with Valentina,” she replied once she came within earshot. “She had something to do here so I hitched a ride and I’m going to take the subway home.”

“No, no, I’ll drive you home,” Alex told her. “I just came here to collect my paycheck and ask where Nelly is.”

“Valentina and I actually went over to her place last night to see what was going on with her and we got nothing,” Christine replied with a shrug.

“Shit.” Alex pressed his hands to his hips and sighed. Then he showed her a knowing smile. “You spent the night with her? What was that like?”

“It was actually fun! She made me dinner and treated me to some homemade babka.” She showed him the container in her right hand. “We just hung out and watched TV all evening but it was actually really cool.”

“Wow, I haven’t had babka in a long time. Chocolate?”

“Cinnamon.”

“Ah, traditional! I believe that was my last one. Anyways, come. I’ll drive you home.”

They walked side by side to the other side of the parking lot to his cozy comfy car for the drive back to Queens. Once they were inside, Alex ran his fingers through his hair and brought his face closer to hers as if he was about to kiss her.

“Yes?” she asked him.

“Will you be my valentine?” he asked her in a low voice.

“Gladly. As long as you're my valentine, baby.” Christine leaned in for the kiss on his nose, and he closed his eyes and bowed his head as if she had just paid him the compliment of a lifetime.

“I also want you to spend the night again,” he confessed.

“What, with you?” she asked him.

“Yes. Well, actually—I was thinking about with you.”

“You wanna bunk with me?” She raised an eyebrow at that.

“If it's not too much to ask,” he replied with a flick of his hair back.

“It's not at all,” she assured him. “My bed is very comfy.”

“I would hope that it is,” he said with a sly smirk. He started up the car and they drove away from the school to the main artery back to Queens.

“Is there any reason why you want to spend the night with me?” Christine asked him as they crossed the bridge.

“I have to get out of that apartment,” he confessed to her. “She's... always wanting to be there when I'm not around. It's like she knows who you are. You know, I—I worry about you. I worry that she'll find out about you and you'll have nowhere to go except out into the woods lest she go and look for you.”

“Why the woods?”

“She knows this city inside and out,” Alex continued. “She'll know how to look for you and she'll try and find you.” He looked on at her with a glimmer of fear in his eyes.

“But what does that have to do with spending the night with me?”

“We gotta start somewhere,” he declared. “And it starts with me getting out of that place for a while. I won't tell her where I'm at, either.”

“Why don't you just go to Rhode Island like when we talked about it one time?”

“School, remember?” He gestured out the back window, and then she nodded at that.

“Oh, yeah, that's right.”

“Plus, I worked too hard to get that position in French lit. I'd hate to throw that out, especially when I already pawned my watch and my phone so I could have three hundred dollars—” He stopped dead in his tracks. Christine gaped at him.

“You did what?”

He pursed his lips and closed his eyes.

“Alex—when did you—” She could hardly talk. It was totally out of the blue. He then inched closer to her, such that she could smell the cologne on his neck.

“Listen, I was going to tell you eventually,” he said at a quick clip. “But yes. I did that. When you, me, Eric, and Nelly all went upstate for New Year's, and I went out to get donuts, there was a pawn shop there, too. I needed the money, so I pawned my watch and my phone. I didn't want to tell you then because I didn't want you to worry about it.”

“And I really hope you didn't tell her, either,” she added.

“No. Not at all. In fact, she didn't even know I went upstate. I just told her I was going to visit some friends for a couple of days. I didn't elaborate on it or anything. She may know the city, being an architect and everything, but there's loopholes in there if you look hard enough. Even the tallest and mightiest of skyscrapers have something faulty about them and they'll wear down with the passing of the sky itself.”

He brought her back to her neighborhood and the outside of her apartment complex, where Eric stood outside the door as if he waited for her.

“But yes,” Alex said. “I want to lay down with you. I want to stay the night with you.”

“Would you like to do it tonight?” she offered him.

“I’ll have to fetch my things, but yeah—I’ll be here at six.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Christine leaned over for a kiss on his lips once more before she climbed out of there.

“Save some of that babka for me, please?” he asked her.

“Of course!” She climbed out and took her case and her bag out of the backseat. Alex flashed her another wink and a pucker of his lips before she bode him goodbye for now, and she turned to Eric.

“Hey!” she greeted him as she walked up to him.

“Hey! Where were you last night?”

“Spent the night with Valentina and Alex is coming over tonight. Why, what’s up?”

“Do you have any duct tape?” he asked her as he offered to hold her black case.

“I… don’t think I do,” she replied as she unlocked the front door. “Why?”

“Greg’s trying to fix his boots and he doesn’t have money for new ones. He doesn’t get paid until the first.”

“Aw, man. No, I don’t have any rolls of duct tape rolling around. He’s gonna have to lay down for a bit, like I’m about to lay down with Alex later tonight…”

🌦  «  andrew  garfield.  cis  man.  he/him.  thirty-nine.  »  was  that  MYKOLA  “NIK"  SOKOLOV  walking  through  the  doors  of  amorelux  ?  i  heard  they  just  moved  in  to  apartment  1403  from  LONDON,  ENGLAND  and  work  as  an  airline  pilot.  they  seem  erudite  &  affable  but  don’t  get  on  their  bad  side  !  they  can  be  forthright  &  testy  which  makes  sense  since  they’re  an  AQUARIOUS.  you  know  they’re  home  when  you  see  a  flash  of  tired  eyes  hidden  behind  thick  frames, the  reflection  of  streetlights  on  the  pavement  after  it  rains,  the  frayed  spines  of  paperback  books,  &  disheveled  hair  after  running  your  hands  through  it  one too  many  times.  ↷. @amoreluxintro​​​

BASIC STATS

 NAME:  mykola  dmitrievich  sokolov  ♡  BIRTHPLACE:  kharkiv,  ukraine  ♡  NICKNAMES:  nik  &  accepts  nicky  depending  on  the  person  ♡  SEXUAL  ORIENTATION:  bisexual/biromantic  ♡  OCCUPATION:  airplane  pilot  for  alaska  airlines  ♡  BIRTHDAY:  february  16th  ♡  NATIONALITY:  ukrainian  ♡  EYE  COLOR:  dark  brown  ♡  HAIR  COLOR:  light  brown  ♡  HEIGHT:  5"10’  ♡  SPOKEN  LANGUAGES:  english  (  fluent  ),  ukrainian  (  fluent  ),  russian  (  fluent  ),  &  spanish  (  conversational  )

BIOGRAPHY

 okie  dokie  so  nik  was  born  and  raised  in  kharkiv,  ukraine  to  an  average  middle  class  family  where  he  lived  for  the  first  eight  years  of  his  life  ,,  his  dad  was  an  aviation  pilot  for  the  ukraine  international  airlines  while  his  mom  is  an  ex-olympic  figure  skater  who  ended  up  getting  disgraced  by  purposely  injuring  her  competitor  (  was  tonya  harding  his  mom  ??  who  knows  but  she  didn’t  get  any  movies  made  about  her  )  so  now  she  sells  makeup  and  jewelry  at  a  small  boutique  she  started  up

 apologies  to  anyone  having  a  conversation  with  nik  bc  his  accent  is  thick  and  all  over  the  place  from  influences.  it’s  still  heavy  ukrainian  accent  but  also  elements  of  the  london  accent  once  he  moves,  so  his  vowels  are  all  over  the  place  like  it’s  v  much  ukrainian  but  also  v  british  lad  and  slang  so  it’s  all  v  confusing

 his  mom  victoriya  is  kind  of  a  shitty  person  ??  just  to  be  blunt  about  it  since  on  top  of  her  injuring  her  competition,  her  redemption  was  stalled  by  finding  out  she  was  pregnant  again  with  nik  after  his  older  sister  and  it  only  goes  downhill  from  there.  which  ..  kinda  sucks  bc  nik’s  dad  dmitri  is  a  true  gem  who  loved  his  kids  and  his  wife  to  the  moon  and  back  and  just  wanted  the  best  life  possible  for  them  but  it  was  around  the  time  of  her  pregnancy  with  nik  that  her  behavior  went  south

 her  attitude  was  sour  majority  of  the  time  and  never  seemed  to  be  pleased  with  whatever  her  husband  did  and  the  drinking  began  after  nik  was  born  since  she  liked  to  think  he  was  the  reason  behind  her  figure  skating  career  never  taking  off  again  and  not  her  disgraced  name  ??  this  behavior  was  a  -10/10  and  dmitri  put  up  with  it  for  eight  years  thinking  that  she  would  change  but  it  never  did  and  it  was  around  nik’s  8th  birthday  that  he  announced  the  divorce,  got  custody  of  nik  and  his  sister  nina  and  moved  the  two  of  them  to  kingston,  u.k  just  outside  of  london  upon  a  job  offer

 it’s  in  his  new  environment  that  nik  begins  to  thrive  ..  finds  an  intense  love  for  literature  and  just  reading  in  general  ??  he’s  a  naturally  bright  boy  and  is  excelling  in  his  classes  where  he  gets  top  marks  and  notes  on  his  report  cards  saying  how  lovely  n  intelligent  of  a  boy  is  ,,  though  he  does  have  trouble  with  making  friends  which  ))):  some  of  his  classmates  are  a  bunch  of  twats  and  like  to  pick  on  nik  since  he’s  the  new  kid  and  has  a  strong  accent

 but  aside  from  that  overall  his  childhood  was  chill  and  was  known  as  the  class  clown  who  got  along  with  everyone  and  generally  just  liked  making  people  laugh  ??  just  a  v  happy  go  lucky  lil  boy  that  as  he  aged  just  looked  like  a  typical  lad  and  not  the  highly  intelligent  boy  who  had  promise  to  attend  oxford  or  cambridge  or  even  any  school  he  wanted  to

 it's  when  nik  and  his  family  moved  to  london  that  he  actually  started  going  by  the  nickname  of  nik  just  as  an  easier  way  of  pronunciation  english  wise.  with  his  dad  and  sister  he  goes  by  mykola,  but  he  still  goes  by  nik  just  bc  he's  gotten  so  used  to  it

 but  once  nik  eventually  settled  in  and  made  some  friends  of  his  own,  everything  settled  down  and  nik  grew  to  enjoy  his  time  in  london.  his  more  affable  personality  started  to  come  through  and  would  become  known  as  one  of  the  few  class  clowns  in  his  grade  who  could  hold  a  conversation  with  anyone

 it’s  around  nik’s  13th  birthday  that  his  dad  introduces  him  to  a  new  lady  in  his  life  aka  his  new  gf  named  isabella  who  has  kind  green  eyes  and  a  vibrant  laugh  that  brought  out  her  animated  personality  and  nik  automatically  loved  her.  he  could  see  how  happy  she  made  his  dad  and  after  years  of  watching  his  dad  be  treated  badly  by  his  mom  nik  was  happy  that  he  found  someone  who  loved  him  and  being  around  him

 fast  forward  seven  months  and  isabella  moves  into  their  home  and  nik  finally  feels  like  he  has  a  family  ??  and  it’s  inevitable  that  the  two  get  married  where  nik  is  the  best  man  and  it’s  with  this  new  family  structure  of  isabella  and  her  daughter  sofia  that  nik  feels  stable??  in  a  sense  ??  uses  this  new  found  sense  of  stability  to  further  challenge  himself  in  his  academics  –  finding  a  strong  penchant  for  math  and  science  and  being  insanely  good  at  it.

 while  debating  whether  he  wanted  to  go  to  university  for  something  math  related,  it  was  hearing  his  dad  speak  about  his  most  recent  flight  that  nik  came  to  the  realization  that  he  wanted  to  follow  in  his  father's  footsteps  and  become  a  pilot.  from  there  on  nik  applies  himself  even  more  so  in  his  studies  with  his  sites  set  on  purude  university  in  america.  to  which  he  eventually  gets  accepted  into  and  he  attends

 the  years  in  school  fly  by  for  nik  and  he  eventually  graduates  with  his  degree,  gets  his  abundance  of  hours  worth  of  supervised  training  completed  within  another  two  years  and  by  age  25  he's  flying  high  and  slowly  working  his  way  up

 nik  bounces  around  america  for  a  while,  settling  in  city  airport  hubs  of  delta  as  he  works  his  way  up  in  rank  and  not  settling  down  in  a  place  for  too  long.  eventually  nik  ends  up  in  new  york  city  with  a  base  in  jfk  international  airport  where  he  starts  to  do  longer  more  international  flights  and  it's  here  in  nyc  that  nik  starts  to  settle  down

 some  sad  times  are  ahead  for  nik  though,  his  family  is  extremely  close  and  he  talks  to  his  father,  isabella  and  nina  all  the  time  on  the  phone.  nina  moved  out  to  brighton  for  an  advertising  job  with  her  husband  philip  and  they  have  a  v  beautiful  baby  girl  named  adelaide  and  i'm  !!  nik  is  in  awe  bc  his  niece  is  gorgeous  and  he  adores  kids  jdfnsj  so  he  visits  them  whenever  he  can  and  especially  when  she  grows  up  since  she's  his  goddaughter  as  well

 nik  and  his  family  are  the  type  who  get  together  for  family  vacations  each  year  still  bc  they  genuinely  all  get  along  and  love  one  another.  death  tw  starts  –  it'ss  during  one  of  nik's  long  shifts  where  it’s  proving  to  be  a  tough  day  when  he's  just  finishing  up  one  of  his  longer  flights  and  he  gets  an  international  call  from  england  saying  that  his  sister  and  his  brother  in  law  were  involved  in  were  involved  in  a  car  accident  and  didn't  make  it  –  end  of  death  tw

 being  her  godfather  nik  is  given  full  guardianship  of  his  niece  adelaide  and  she  soon  makes  the  move  from  england  to  new  york  city.  it's  a  tough  time  for  nik  as  he's  thrown  into  a  whirlwind  of  settling  everything  with  paperwork,  getting  adelaide  settled,  and  taking  time  off  from  work  to  acclimate  to  having  to  raise  a  teenager  now.  unfortunately  the  one  long  term  and  healthy  relationship  nik  found  himself  in  begins  to  suffer  from  the  amount  of  stress  and  being  pulled  in  multiple  directions.  nik  and  his  boyfriend  break  up  and  seeing  as  nik  didn’t  plan  to  become  a  father,  he  decides  now  is  the  time  to  refocus  and  dedicate  all  of  his  time  to  raising  adelaide

 after  some  time  adelaide  decides  she  doesn't  like  the  hectic  ways  of  new  york  so  nik  begins  to  apply  to  other  companies  and  once  he's  met  with  a  generous  salary  and  a  flexible  schedule  for  him  to  look  after  adelaide,  he  and  his  niece  make  the  move  to  seattle  and  eventually  settle  into  the  amore  lux  apartments

 nik  truly  does  hope  to  one  day  settle  down  and  taking  on  the  responsibility  of  raising  adelaide  certainly  made  nik  aware  just  how  lonely  he  is  lmao.  he  does  have  hope  to  have  kids  of  his  own  potentially  just  from  how  family  oriented  he  is.  right  now  he's  juggling  work  and  learning  how  to  raise  a  teenager  while  they're  both  dealing  with  grief  and  while  it's  a  lot,  he  and  adelaide  see  eye  to  eye

CONNECTION  IDEAS

 someone  who  checks  in  on  adelaide  when  nik  is  off  at  work  doing  longer  flights.  he  would  say  babysitter  while  adelaide  would  argue  against  it  (  she's  16  thank  you  very  much  !!  )  but  he  just  likes  to  know  that  there's  enough  food  in  the  apartment  or  if  his  niece  has  homework  questions  then  someone  is  there

 some  hookups  !!  nik  is  painfully  single  and  while  still  getting  over  his  ex,  he's  still  a  man  with  needs  so  the  door  is  open

 anyone  with  a  kid  of  their  own  who  can  offer  nik  some  advice  on  How  To  Raise  a  Teenager  When  You  Weren't  Planning  On  Raising  a  Teenager

 a  wholesome  date  where  nik  and  your  muse  went  out  for  dinner  but  ultimately  they  realized  they  were  better  off  as  friends  and  they  continue  to  be  as  such

 an  errand  friend  !!  your  muse  and  nik  oftentimes  like  to  run  errands  together  just  bc  it's  more  fun  and  the  company  is  nice  as  opposed  to  doing  everything  by  yourself

 maybe  someone  nik  was  having  a  casual  friends  with  benefits  situation  with  and  since  he's  still  finding  his  footing  with  relationships  and  moving  on  from  his  ex,  your  muse  could've  ended  up  liking  nik  more  than  nik  understood.  feelings  could've  been  hurt  and  things  are  awkward  now

 friends  please  !!  *black  panther  voice*  someone  give  this  man  some  friends  !!  he's  lonely  !!

One of the Ukrainian photographers I’ve been following, who goes by Libkos on Instagram (he encourages free sharing of his work). He has a great eye.

Translation of the captions on the last two:

And it united us all. The one general and right thing: stand up for yourself. And each of us does something to contribute. And each of us has our own weapons.

. . . . . .

My last nerve when the comments say that the war in Ukraine is fake

I can't talk about Ukraine.

today has been a nightmare; one of those nightmares when you try to run and your feet are not moving, you hear a monster behind you, charging, and you can't run.

I am from Georgia. 20% of my country is occupied by Russia. we had a war with them back in 2008. I was 11. I'll never forget what it was like, fearing for my family and my country.

it was summer, so I was staying with relatives in the country (as is tradition is Georgia). my siblings were with our grandma in a different part of the country. mom and dad were in the capitol. I remember the day Gori (a small city near the pseudo border) was bombed. I remember the footage on TV of bombs dropping. I remember clips shown so vividly even though I've only seen them once. I remember the screams of a famous Georgian reporter sitting in a passenger seat of a car driving through the streets as bombs dropped left and right; I remember the fear in her eyes. I remember a german journalist crying and asking for help in broken Russian (because he didn't speak Georgian) because his cameraman was injured and unconscious, lying in a trunk of a car. I remember that journalist's voice so clearly, the desperation and fear for his friend. I remember a photo of a woman, bloody, in a rubble, reaching out for help. she looked like my grandma, she looked like everyone's grandma. another photo of a man cluching onto his dead brother, crying in agony. I remember a live footage of Georgian reporter getting shot in the hand by Russian solders as she was reporting LIVE from the "border". she went straight to triage and continued reporting. my dad drove through the city before it was bombed that day to pick up my siblings from grandma's. 2 hours later, as they were driving back, the city was already bombed and the military instructed them to go around the long way.

I don't remember the exact date but I remember the moment I, an 11-year-old girl, thought I was going to die. I was in a rural area but the road to one of the border access points ran through that town. I remember exactly where I was standing as I heard the fighter jet. it flew so low. I remember in that moment the shadow of it felt all-encompassing. "I'm going to die," I thought. the jet disappeared quickly and later I was told it was one of ours, not Russian. still to this say I don't know if they lied, if we were actually that close to dying.

so I can't talk about Ukraine.

because my heart can't take the pain of seeing your dearest neighbor get abused like this.

because I don't have to imagine the fear, terror, despair, Ukrainians feel right now.

because I know first hand what Putin is capable of.

because I know we're next.

Shambles of Memories

Chapter Four : Red Ledger

Soulmate AU : A person’s dreams are their soulmate’s memories. 

Pairing : Winter Soldier x Reader, Bucky Barnes x Reader

Series Summary : Cold, darkness, and iron doors. All Morana Pierce has known all of her life. Her duty as head nurse to the infamous Winter Soldier, is her only occupation at a compound in the middle of a Siberian tundra. The Asset looks familiar, and feels like home to her. She makes him remember things he’s not supposed to know. And neither of them can figure out why.

Warnings : nightmare sequence (mentions of blood and guns), mentions of needles, panic attack, angst city

Author’s Note : hi friends! so this chapter is a bit short, but with a lot happening! get used to it, because the story is really going to pick up these next few parts! i hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as i have enjoyed writing this :) all of the luv to yall 

*Conversations in Russian are italicized !

**Liebling means darling in German !

Series Masterlist // Previous // Next

Heavy boots thudded across the concrete floor, the footsteps echoing throughout the empty warehouse. Quivering breath came out in frozen clouds. It was silent. Too silent. Looking down, her hands were not her own. One, gloved in leather, the other a stunning metallic silver. She held a gun in her right.

Wind blew in through the smashed windows, the icy air stinging her exposed skin. Her eyes were dry, and she could imagine they were bloodshot and irritated from the cold. Tiny particles of ice sat in the dark eyelashes. Quiet as a shadow, she cleared the floor she was on, the ground level, and worked her way up towards the roof. The footsteps were not her own, nor the body she possessed, but came from above her, thundering like a brewing storm. Her own were silent, precisely placed to not make a single noise.

Each level she climbed flew by in a flash of silver, grey, and black, and the dark blue of the night sky was a vast and empty canvas. All was silent, except the soft inhale and exhale of her lungs. Her heartbeat thudded in her ears, and she couldn’t help but wonder if the enemy could hear it too.

She lingered at the iron door on the final level, EXIT written in Ukrainian, painted red and bold against the grey of the room. Her eyes strained to even see it. The door itself was rusted, weathered and eroded from time and neglect.

Though the hinge was rusted over, with a firm kick, the door swung open in one try, falling off of the joint of the wall and landing onto the snow covered roof with a bang. A man was there, covered head to toe in layers to protect himself from cold. Begging for his life. On his knees. Crying. His eyes were dark like iron ore. His talk was rushed, stuttering. A blubbering, pathetic mess. Praying to a God that could not save him. And even in that moment, she, and the mind of the person she was occupying knew one cannot stop Death. 

A gunshot to the stranger’s chest sounded throughout the night. Blood. So much blood. Painting the floor. Painting her face. The gloved hand came up to wipe it, but to no avail. It’s in her eye. Suffocating, she can’t wipe it off, its in her eyes now, and she’s blinded by red. All she can see is red. There’s some in her mouth, the bitter copper burning on her tongue. She’s drowning in it. In red, red

- RED

Morana’s eyes snapped open. Her hands came up to wipe her mouth, the taste of the man’s blood still lingering on her lips. She must have bitten her tongue in her sleep. Her breathing was frenzied, and the sheets were damp with the cold sweat of her dream.

4:17. The numbers stared at her from her alarm clock in a neon red color, taunting her with the same hue of the mans blood. She blinked, trying to recollect her thoughts, but the blood was all she could remember. Shuddering, Morana reached into the darkness and grabbed at the string to turn on her lamp. Her room was alive in an instant, and she blinked to adjust to the change of light. Nothing could hurt her when the shadows were away. Nothing - right? 

Her bare feet hit the concrete floor, cold. Glancing around her room, her eyes flitted to the mirror that sat against the wall. Her reflection startled her, she didn’t even look like herself. The white nightgown hung loosely off of her gangly form, her skin paled. She saw the circles under her eyes and the sagging wrinkles on her cheeks and forehead. The blemishes, the patchy skin from a disturbed sleep. Matted hair falling out of a bun. Her face was hot, even though she was shivering. Her eyes were haunted, surely not her own. 

Gingerly, the girl lifted a hand, to touch the roundness of her cheek, half expecting the reflection to not copy her and instead remain motionless. But it did, the girl in the mirror copied the motions, stroking the pads of her fingertips alongside her cheekbones, the lines of her jaw and nose.

What had she even dreamt about? Morana could barely remember it already.

The woman must of stared at that mirror for hours, and a part of her felt like something else was staring back.

✪ ✪ ✪

A soft knock on her door stirred her from her thoughts, and it opened without an invitation. She watched Nigel emerge from behind the iron, his eyes glancing over her face in concern.

“Ana, you ok?” His voice was coated in a thick German accent, and a layer of concern. “It’s six. Almost time for breakfast.”

Rubbing her tired eyes, Morana’s glance went back to her clock, the numbers now reading 6:07. “Shit,” she muttered, rising from her seat and hastily gathering her clothes from the nearby drawer. Her hands were shaking, and there was no doubt in her mind that Nigel didn’t notice as well.

“Did you not sleep well?”

“You could say that.”

Niegel Nemec was a young soldier - Level Zeta - who begun working at the compound a little over six months ago. The bright-eyed boy was barely nineteen, with slight build, but the intelligence that rivaled the upper ranking scientists on Level 5. That’s how the two met, Nigel stepped in to help with a lab when she was facing a mental block regarding coding the program. With one glance at the computer, he had promised to fix it in twenty minutes max, but solved it like a jigsaw puzzle in ten. 

Ever since, Morana made it a priority to protect him, so she took him under her wing, even protected him from the cruelty of his general officer, none other than Brock Rumlow. Being as close to Brock as she was, Morana was able to pull a few strings, but made sure to never suggest that it was any more than a mentorship between the two, in fear of a hand of wrath coming down on them both in a fit of jealousy. 

It had happened more than once previously.

But the truth is, it wasn’t just a mentorship. Nigel looked up to Morana, admired her wits and her uncanny intelligence. He was always ready to lend a hand in the labs, and soon, Morana found herself a little less lonesome. She had lived twenty years in solitude behind iron walls, unless her father - who she rarely saw - and Brock - who was a shadow, always lurking around her - counted as company. 

Quickly, the mentorship turned into a companionship. Nigel got someone to confide in, a sister. And Morana was given a sense of purpose, a belonging, something in her life valuable to protect. A brother.

With Nigel waiting politely outside her door, Morana quickly threw on pants and a work shirt, promising herself to come back to her room later and get a few more hours of sleep. 

“I’m going to breakfast,” he called out from the hallway. 

“I’m coming! Wait up!”

Taking off in a slight jog, Morana managed to catch up to him. Though Nigel was younger than her, he was significantly taller, his long legs and large strides making it near impossible to beat him to the hall. “You ass.”

He chuckled, “I’m not the one who’s running late.”

Sighing, she rubbed her eyes in an attempt to conceal her embarrassment. Morana didn’t like to be out of routine, she had an appearance to keep up thanks to her status. “You know,” she started softly, as they approached the end of the hallway, pressing the upward arrow for the next elevator. “You know you didn’t have to wait on me.”

“Okay, but since when do I not?”

“Me being fifteen minutes late is a significant reason to leave without me.”

The elevator doors opened, and two officers got off, and Nigel saluted them, as did Morana. Once on, and the doors closed, the young soldier took her softly by the arm, forcing her to look up at him. “Ana, you know you don’t always have to have your shit together all the time, right?”

“Damn you. You can read me like a book.”

Laughing softly, Nigel released her, punching the two button, and the creaky old elevator whirred to life. “I mean it,” he said. “You deserve a break.”

Morana snorted sarcastically. “When your father is the commanding officer of a military base, there is no such thing as a ‘break’. I have a reputation to keep up.”

The floors dinged by. “Is he even on base?” Nigel asked.

Morana shook her head simply.

The coms sounded through the overhead speakers the moment they stepped off of the elevator. “All personnel on the ‘FIST’ project, report to Level 7, code red, code red.” The directions repeated once more, but Morana pivoted on the heel of her foot without having to be told twice, though she let slip a groan. Project FIST was the code name for the Winter Soldier’s mission debriefing, and code red meant mission gone bad, either with serious injuries or the Soldat untamable.

Morana hoped it was the former.

Grimacing, she looked towards her friend. “Rain check on going over the formulas for the project?”

Casually, Nigel shoved his hands in his pockets, eyes directed towards the floor to hide his lingering disappointment. “It’s fine, Ana, go do what you need.”

Her hand found his bicep, and she gave it a polite and kind squeeze. “I’ll find you after, yeah?”

Her back was already turned when he called out, “I’ll bring you breakfast!”

✪ ✪ ✪

By the time she got to Level 7, she could hear shouting from outside of the doors, and when she entered, it was chaos. Men in white coats and military uniforms alike shouting back and forth from the sides of the room, while the Asset stood in the middle, cowering and bleeding on the floor. 

His metal hand was applying pressure to the bullet wound on his right bicep, the red gushing between the plates of his fingers. He was grimacing, in obvious pain, and paleing. He looked like he could topple over at any given moment.

“Gentlemen!” The men’s heads snapped up at the volume of Morana’s voice. “If you would kindly give me a few minutes to assess Soldat, I will have him ready for the debriefing.”

A man with beady eyes and pursed lips cursed out in German before ordering the remaining men out of the room. Pausing, the man turned back to her, barking out, “Make it quick, girl.” 

Morana ignored him, and once the metal doors locked shut, she immediately went about the room, gathering surgical supplies from various storage containers on shelves. She called out from over her shoulder, “At ease, Soldat. You need to take a seat before you bleed out on my floor.”

As she crouched down to open a cabinet, she heard the dull thud and crackling of paper from her medical table, and barely missed the pained hiss that passed his lips. 

When she turned back around, the Soldier’s eyes, the only part of him not covered in tactical gear, were unfocused, the sharp and steel blue clouded. He was losing blood, and quickly.

Wordlessly, Morana went to work, her hands going to the various clasps and buckles of his stealth suit to free him of the leather. A grunt of protest worked it’s way from the depths of his throat and she shushed him, and to his surprise it was not in the belittling way he was used to. It was kind, and gentle, like a mother calming a sleepless child.

For whatever reason, the nurse had a calming effect on him. It was like stepping into the warmth of a room after being outside in the cold for too long. The more he was near her, the more he remembered - the more his heart ached. He didn’t know how or why he felt this way, but if there was anything he knew, his handlers didn’t like him remembering. They didn’t want their fist soiled by a conscience. But when you have spent the majority of your life surrounded by sharp edges and steel, you can’t help but notice the soft, bright, and pure things that occasionally appear.

He brushed it off - or tried too.

But at one point of preparation, she made a wrong move - too sudden, or too harsh. Her right wrist was caught by his metal hand in an instant, and forced behind her back. Her body turned with the movement if her arm. Her back was turned to him, the backs of her thighs pressed against the edge of the examination table. Though she tried not to, Morana winced.

The Soldier let go immediately, his heart stopping in his chest. When she turned back around, he looked so beaten it made her heart clench; he was expecting a raised hand, a punishment. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“It’s okay, Soldier.” She reached for his hand. He withdrew out of instinct. His breathing was frenzied, he had the appearance of a caged animal, wild and terrified. His eyes said all he could not verbally. Slowly, she knelt to his eye level, whispering, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know.” His voice was barely a murmur. “But I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

He met her eyes. “You should be.”

Cautiously, Morana reached for his flesh hand, and when he did not protest, she enclosed it around her own. His hand nearly engulfed hers completely. The Soldier eyed her warily as she trailed her fingertips over the hills and valleys of his knuckles, scraped and bruised from a mission gone south. His hand was warm, grimy from blood and dirt, but his callouses felt impossibly soft against her own hand. 

He watched as Morana uncurled his fingers from around her own, his palm now bare before her, and looked on in wonder as she brought it to her mouth and pressed a kiss into its center. And miraculously, she allowed his hand to cup the curve of her cheek, his thumb grazing over her cheekbone. He all but moaned at the touch.

The girl wondered when was the last time the Asset had been handled with care such as this. When was the last time he had been touched this softly, without fear of being struck in punishment. She took his metal hand away from where it pressed against his wound, and kissed it’s palm too. His blood tasted bitter against her lips, but yet she smiled at him.

“Can’t you see,” she asked, “that I have nothing to be fearful of?”

He nodded. 

“May I help you remove your suit?” 

Again, another nod.

With that, the pair snapped out of their dreamlike stance, and Morana’s hands went once more to the clasps of his gear, and he allowed her to strip him of the leather and hollisters. Gently, she helped his injured arm out of the vest, and undid the buckles at his jaw to take off his mask. 

His lips were paled and chapped, and Morana ushered him to lay back on the table. She brought the stool to his bedside, and the tray she used propped in her lap. As she opened a pair of sterile forceps, she glanced at him. 

“This might hurt, Soldier,” she warned lowly.

In response, he merely shrugged. 

The bullet wound was not the worst the young woman had seen. It was a clean shot through Soldat’s bicep, barely missing the humerus and major arteries. As she worked to suture her patient, he watched her, silent and curious. She was just about to tie off the final stitch when he spoke up.

“Why are you not afraid of me?” He asked.

She didn’t look up, but he watched as she pursed her lips in concentration as she drove the needle through his skin. “’Cause I’ve known you my whole life...seems like it at least.”

His brow cocked slightly. “I’ve known you?”

Morana glanced up. “Do you remember what I told you the last pre-mission check up?”

Soldat’s lips pressed into a faint, tight lipped smile. “I used to teach you Russian.”

At that moment, the young girl couldn’t help the bubbling laughter that slipped her lips. Her giggles were joyous, and the Soldier was enraptured by it. It was soft and sweet, the most wonderful music he had ever heard. 

She lived for these small moments with Soldat. The moments when he recognized her, or remembered past instances together, the memories from a golden era, and she could forget, for just a moment. It was like being reunited with a long-lost friend. Blame it all she could on knowing him since a child, their bond felt something ancient - she must have known him long before they ever met.

Once her laughter died down, Soldat spoke up once more. “I don’t remember much,” he said, “but if I remember anything, I remember you.”

The last suture was tied. Reaching over to a nearby tray, she grabbed an alcohol swab, and went to wipe off the remaining blood that trailed down his arm. “You were the only friend I had for a very long time, Soldier.”

He looked stunned. “Friend?” The word felt foreign on his tongue.

Morana’s eyes met his shyly. “That’s what I considered you, yes.”

Soldat’s head cocked at her. “I used to call you Ana.”

“And that’s what all of my friends call me.”

Once the disinfectant pad was thoroughly soiled, the nurse wadded it up and tossed it in a trash bin to her right. The Soldier watched the way she moved, with grace and poise. Her face seemed to be carved out of ivory, the curves and edges of her face accentuated under the harsh lighting of the room. She was a wonder. He needed to know more.

“Tell me more.” It was a plead, his voiced laced in urgency.

Morana smiled at him, and the Soldier swore it was if a thousand suns shone down upon him.

“Okay,” she said.

✪ ✪ ✪

After the successful post-mission procedure, Morana laid on her bed of her bunker, eating the breakfast Nigel, bless him, snuck her. It was far past breakfast hour, nine oclock, but with one look at the girl, he knew she couldn’t wait til lunch.

So here the two sat, Nigel with a yellowed notepad on the floor, working a formula they had been stuck on for weeks now. He ran a hand through his blonde locks and groaned.

“You’re biting your pencil again,” Morana noted through a mouth full of scrambled eggs.

“Shush it, Ana.”

“Have you considered it as a combustion reaction?”

The German boy groaned, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “Of course I did!” he exclaimed. “I’m not an idiot!”

She swallowed her bite before taking a sip of orange juice from the bottle that sat on her bedside table. “I never said you were,” she said afterward. “You can just be a bit dull sometimes.”

The pencil that was once in Nigel’s hand whizzed past the girl’s ear, barely missing her head. 

“You’re the dull one, Ana,” he threw back jokingly. “But seriously are you okay?”

Morana tossed back the pencil. “What? Do I not look like the epitome of health?”

“You look like shit,” he stated, and her face fell. “I’m not joking. When was the last time you slept through the night?”

The young girl got up from her bed and walked towards her desk, fiddling with the various journals and books. “I’ve just been having these really bad nightmares lately,” she admitted quietly, fingering through a worn copy of On the Origin of Species. Page 147 was bookmarked, something about fish. Her brows furrowed, and she placed the book back on it’s original spot on the bookshelf before turning back to Nigel, arms crossed.

“They’re back again?”

Morana pressed her fingers to her temple in dire hope it would release the oncoming tension. “Yes, but you know how they are. They come and go. Sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months. I’m fine -”

Nigel stood. “No your not,” he interrupted, going towards her. His hands placed themselves firmly on her shoulders, and he forced her to look at him. “This has been going on for years now, from what you’ve told me? Don’t you think you should tell someone? Your father-”

A string snapped in her heart, and she went cold. “No!” She yelped, and her friend flinched at the sudden volume. Her heart rattled in her chest, and she shuddered at the prospect. “No,” she said again, quieter. “No, no, no, I can’t - I could never, I - not again - no, Nigel he can’t know!” Morana grabbed his hands, and pleaded through tearfilled eyes. “Please don’t tell him!”

A sob ripped it’s way through her throat, and the boy was quick to envelope her in a hug, and he whispered sweet nothings into her hair. She shook in his arms. 

“Ana, Ana - listen to me it’s okay,” he breathed in a failed attempt to console her.

“You can’t tell him Nigel! Promise me you won’t,” she choked out. She removed her head from the crook of his neck and looked up at him, eyes panicked and frenzied. She couldn’t breathe, her airway was closing up.

Morana thought back to the dream that woke her in the early hours of the day, and recalled the taste of blood, how it sat in the back of her throat, suffocating her like an invisible noose. She recalled the red, the burning, and half of it she couldn’t remember from the nightmare, but it felt as if her brain was on fire. The flames licked at her neck and tongue, and she was screaming.

Nigel begged her to quiet down - he gathered her in his arms and hushed her. He sang to her the same German song his mother sang to him as a little boy, before the war and the Union capturing everyone he ever held dear. He spoke to her softly, told her that she was safe, that nothing would ever happen to her, as long as he lived.

Because that’s what you do when you love someone. 

Her body went numb. She was as good as a ragdoll, held up in his arms. Her mouth kept muttering, though her mind had blanked out. Her pleas became a mantra, and all he could do was pray that the lull of the melody would comfort her.

After a few verses and chorus’ of the children’s song, Morana’s muttering became coherent once more. “Please, don’t tell him,” she begged in a whisper.

“Liebling, I’ve spoken maybe two words to the man. I’m not classified to even be in the same room as him on a daily basis, I won’t tell. I promise.”

Morana cried out a thank you, and the two sank to the floor, the younger consoleing the older. When she caught her breath, he did not question her further, and brushed off her numerous apologies of her breakdown. He did not ask questions, and for that, she was thankful.

In truth, Morana could not tell what sent the crying spell off. Something in her deep subconscious warned against telling her father anything regarding her dreams. The mere idea of it brought goosebumps to her skin and a sweat down her back. 

Nigel helped Morana up, and they went their way to the labs on Level 5 in silence. The uncomfortable feeling would loom over them like a dark cloud for the rest of the day. They didn’t speak of the incident again.

- taglist (open) -

@igothroughphasesalot​ @sharin-gone​ @yujin-yuki​ @izhetttttt​ @witch-of-letters​

Every day I wake up and the first thing I check is the news about the Ukraine invasion. I do this several times a day and its the last thing I do before I go to sleep. Everyday I google if president Zelenskyj is still alive, how many civilian casualties there are and what bullshit is the Russian propaganda spewing. I can't sleep well, I can't concentrate properly, I'm depressed.

War is never OK, whether its Syria, Afghanistan or Ukraine, but it just hits differently when it's happening one country over and reminds you of the atrocities that happened in your own country 80 years ago. Back then, when Hitler came for my country, the other nations closed their eyes. I'm proud that this time my country is one of the first ones to respond so that history doesn't repeat itself... But is it enough? What if tomorrow I wake up to the news that Ukraine has been conquered and next week Putin decides my country is next?

My heart breaks for all the people who were forced to abandon their home, for all the people that still have family and friends in the country not knowing if they are alive or not, for all the lives and history lost to the bombing.

Meanwhile I just sit here, in my quiet country, going to my my boring part-time job, not being able to do anything more than donate money and voice my support.

I'm not a religious person but every day I say a quiet prayer in my head to whatever entity that might be up there to finally see this war end, to finally see my slavic brothers and sister return back to their homes and their boring jobs.

And despite all of this, every day I see the bravery of Ukrainian people, even ordinary civilians. Whether it be the old lady with the sunflower seeds, the guy picking up the mine with his bare hands, the farmers stealing and towing russian armored vehicles with their tractors, the people stopping a convoy from moving with their bodies or the people weaving tactical camouflage out of old clothing and mixing molotov cocktails while singing. I see this and I am hopeful.

And let's not forget the brave Russian citizens that keep protesting and raising awareness back home in Russia, even though they are being arrested, because the regime doesn't want ordinary people to know the atrocities they're committing. Let's not forget it is not the Russian people's fault, its the fault of their totalitarian government that keeps feeding them lies.

To my Ukrainian brothers and sisters - you are so brave, stay strong and be safe.

To Putin and all of his friends still stuck in the glory days of USSR - you will get what you deserve, sooner or later, and I hope you rot in hell you fucking monsters.

SLAVA UKRAINI! 🇺🇦🌻

i noticed that you like to write a lot of heartrender husbands from fedyor’s side of things (which makes sense cause fedyor is fun!) but i have to ask in the modern au, what was ivan thinking the whole first two months 😂??

like was he carrying the joke the whole time? did his brain short circuit around fedyor?? was he worried about what fedyor was thinking or did he just think he was shy? Did he think the first date went well ☠️?

This was supposed to be lighthearted, but then there came Feels. So here is Ivan's backstory in Phantomverse. Content warning for mentions of an abusive relationship, familial homophobia, implied sexual manipulation, and dark themes. Nothing graphic, but duly noted.

Also on AO3.

Brighton Beach, 2015

It’s safe to say that Ivan Ivanovich Sakharov Kaminsky did not ever, not in a thousand years, not in a million, imagine himself ending up here. At one point, even Moscow would have been a stretch, and that was obviously still Russia. The fact that he would be walking down a sidewalk in Brooklyn, under the elevated tracks of the Q train that rattles and bangs overhead, on a cool spring morning to do his shopping at the Brighton Bazaar – in, should this somehow not be clear, America – and then returning to his apartment and his husband is, quite frankly, something out of an alternate-Ivan timeline. One from the Twilight Zone, or whatever they are calling that kind of thing these days. Sometimes when he thinks about it too much, he gets afraid that it is in fact a dream. That no matter how long it has gone on and how good it has been, it will suddenly and inevitably end. After all, he is Russian. Sunny optimism has never been accused of forming a notable facet of the national character, and Ivan himself would never be described as the hopeful type. But God, for this, he does.

He reaches the bazaar – a bustling blue-awninged international supermarket with three-quarters of its signs written in Cyrillic – and steps inside, grabbing a basket and pulling a scrap of paper from his pocket to double-check his list. He knows what he needs, but he likes the tidiness of writing it down, and he proceeds into the crammed aisles, passing customers speaking English, Russian, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Yiddish, and several other languages he can’t identify by ear. Brighton Bazaar stocks all the Russian products necessary to satisfy even a homesick expat like Ivan, and he enjoys being able to navigate the store with ease and read all the labels at first glance. He can get by in English, if he’s pressed, but it’s easier to leave it to Fedyor, who is fluent, and in here, he can conjure the illusion that he will walk out on the street and be back where he truly belongs. He likes Brighton Beach a great deal more than he ever expected to, but it’s no replacement for the real thing.

Ivan collects his purchases, along with a few special extras, and takes them to the counter. He is greeted in Russian by the checkout clerk, who knows him well for always turning up at the same time every Saturday morning with military precision. As Semyon Pavlovich Kuznetsov (who is called Syoma by his friends, but he has not clearly stated that Ivan can use the diminutive and therefore Ivan does not) scans his items, Ivan consents to exchange a few gruff words of small talk on the weather (nice) how the Mets did last night (badly) and the old guy who apparently died of a heart attack two days ago in the Russian bathhouse on Neck Road (making Ivan glad he did not choose said day to attend). It’s this weird Russian-American hybrid of things, since Semyon is the teenage grandson of a Red Army veteran who fought at Stalingrad, but he was born and raised in Brooklyn, loves American video games, and is fully fluent in American pop culture. It startles Ivan to realize that while this kid speaks Russian perfectly, he has probably never done so in Russia outside of a few visits back to the old country when his family can afford it. That is a very personal question to ask one’s grocery clerk, however, and he does not.

And then there’s that other thing, which he would definitely never be asked in Russia, especially not these days. Semyon hits the button to tally up Ivan’s bill, informs him that he owes $56.77, and then says cheerily, “How is Fedyor?”

Ivan concentrates on digging the exact amount out of his wallet in cash, since he never had a credit card when he lived in Russia and is still somewhat leery of them. “Fedyor is fine,” he says curtly, in the tone that makes it clear that he understands this question is an expected part of an American social interaction, but that is all the information he is willing to venture. “Here is the money.”

Semyon accepts it, counts it into the till, and rings the transaction through, handing Ivan his bags and his receipt. “Have a nice day, Mr. Kaminsky!”

“Thank you, Semyon Pavlovich.” Ivan accepts his purchases and leaves the store, taking a deep breath of the salty, sunny air and the wind whipping off the seafront. It’s still a little too early in the year for there to be many bathers on the beach, though there are always people strolling on the boardwalk. It’s only a few minutes to the apartment, which is just off Brighton Beach Avenue and overlooks the Atlantic Ocean. Ivan buzzes into the old brownstone, takes the stairs to the third floor, and as he unlocks his front door and lets himself in, wonders, yet again, at the sheer impossibility that his life has led him here.

Ivan is the third of five boys, but he was the one who was named after his father. It was not, of course, because they had some special hope for him to be the great inheritor of paternal pride, but a simple matter of logistics. His oldest brother, Roman, was named after their paternal grandfather. His second-oldest brother, Oleg, was named after their maternal grandfather. When Ivan arrived, only then was it proper to name him after Ivan Romanovich, Ivan Sakharov senior, since rushing too fast to glorify yourself as an individual, rather than your community and your ancestors, could be seen as running contrary to the collectivist ideals of the great Soviet Union. By the time his two younger brothers arrived, his parents were hard pressed for ideas; Yuri (for Gagarin) and Vladimir (originally for Lenin, though that has obviously acquired a different connotation those days) were clearly obtained by putting the names of national heroes into a hat and picking.

Five children was quite a lot for a Soviet-generation family, and Ivan doesn’t know anyone else his age with that number of siblings. After all, more children meant more time standing in line at Municipal Grocery Store #5 for food that has to be shared among more mouths, more worries about how to clothe and educate and accommodate them, more chances for one of them to go terminally astray and betray the family honor. Ivan wonders sometimes if his parents only really wanted Roman and Oleg, but decided to keep going as a matter of gaming the system, so much as it was able to be gamed.

By the early 1980s, the aging, decrepit, dying USSR, run by aging, decrepit, dying men, was in the grip of a demographic crisis so extreme that it was a contest between worrying about which one would end them faster: crazy President Reagan with his finger on the nuclear button, or the whole country just keeling over of old age. The idea of what a family even meant had been under constant challenge since the heady days of the Bolsheviks, who denounced marriage as a construct of bourgeoisie oppression and preached for free love and sexual liberation. Then it went hard back in the other direction during Stalin and the Great Patriotic War, holding up the traditional nuclear family as the highest ideal and offering rewards to mothers who had multiple children. Then it lurched away again. Abortion and contraception had been legal and freely available since the days of the revolution and most Soviet women made good use of them. Plus, of course, the obvious difficulties of maintaining a sizeable family when it was increasingly impossible to obtain even basic supplies and foodstuffs. It just made no sense.

Desperately trying to counter this slide toward self-inflicted obsolescence, the late-stage USSR came up with a number of incentives to boost the birth rate by any means necessary. They allowed mothers to refuse to list fathers on the birth certificate, to avoid social shame if he was married, foreign, a drunkard, or otherwise unsuitable, and beefed up programs to support single women with children. They also went back to the old-school plan of granting extra stipends, housing privileges, and state recognition to families that had more than two children, and Ivan himself was the third of his. It doesn’t take a genius to deduce that he was almost surely conceived for the tax benefits.

Not, that is, that it didn’t work. When Ivan was born in 1984, the family lived in a tiny apartment on the tenth floor of a building with no elevator (or rather it did have an elevator, but it was always broken), crowded in with three single young men who were at the very bottom of the list for being assigned housing. By the time his youngest brother, Vladimir, was born in 1987, they had been moved to a small house of their own on the outskirts of Krasnoyarsk, not far from the bus that his father took two hours a day out to the mine. The cynical old joke in the USSR was that the people pretended to work and the government pretended to pay them, though in Ivan Romanovich’s case, the work was backbreakingly real, even if the money wasn’t. He would come home exhausted and filthy after a sixteen-hour shift and yell at Galina Sakharova to feed him, bark at his sons, and then fall asleep in front of the television, only to get up the next morning and shuffle off again.

Ivan Ivanovich has spent a lot of time after he left home trying to understand what that kind of life would do to a man, mostly because he didn’t do it while he was there. Of course he didn’t. He was a child, and it was simply what he was used to, the only way the world could possibly be. On the night of December 26, 1991, as Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev signed the United Soviet Socialist Republics out of existence with a single stroke of the pen, Ivan remembers his father crying and swearing and throwing things at the wall, the heavy yellow-glass ashtray that always seemed unbreakable, perched on the kitchen table to collect the detritus of his constant cigarettes, smashed to bits just like their country, their sense of self, their security. It wasn’t as if life in the USSR was so wonderful. It was just the only thing they knew. Beyond that, there was nothing but the terror of the utterly unknown.

At any rate, the world didn’t end. The oligarchs moved in and began snapping up Russia’s newly privatized economy. Ivan Ivanovich, of course, had no goddamn clue about this either, aside from overhearing his father curse about it some more. He trudged through secondary school and left at eighteen, without even trying to proceed onto university. Those weren’t for someone like him, he knew that. Instead he got a job at the ever-troubled Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plant, and went straight to work on the factory floor.

It was around this time that the one disruption in his otherwise humdrum life, the one thing that stopped him from just settling into the same miserable existence as his father and going on like that forever, became too impossible to ignore. And that was the fact that no matter how much Ivan tried to squash it down, push it aside, or otherwise pretend it didn’t exist, he could no longer deny the fact that he was attracted to men, and only to men. He bought some of the cheap porn magazines from the tabak, tried to flip through them and get something out of the girls in heavy eyeliner and bleached-blonde hair, spilling out of their scanty lingerie, and just… didn’t. He wasn’t even interested enough to try a conversation with a real flesh-and-blood woman (not that Ivan had ever gotten through a conversation with another human being, especially a woman, without disaster) and see if it was different in the flesh. Nothing about the experience, even imagining it, appealed to him at all. But men…

He knew it wasn’t right, just because – well, you knew that sort of thing, you didn’t have to ask about it, you didn’t let on. But nonetheless, something, somehow, must have given him away, because one evening after the end of his shift, one of his coworkers cornered him in the back. His name was Konstantin and he was a few years older, big and bluff and constantly smelling like machine oil. He stood there, folded his arms, and said, “I will give you five hundred rubles if you suck my dick, Ivan Ivanovich.”

Ivan didn’t know how to answer. He had never spoken to Konstantin about anything aside from the job. He didn’t like him, he wasn’t attracted to him, and he didn’t want his filthy fucking rubles. He wanted to go home and take a shower.

And yet. He wanted to know. So when he went home, it was with five hundred rubles in his pocket, and a strange, indefinable feeling of something both excitement and shame. He looked it up later and found that it was barely seven American dollars, barely enough to buy a sandwich in this place he now lives. Then after that it became – not a relationship, not exactly. But he had done it once and Konstantin knew that he was at least theoretically willing, and there was no getting away from it now. Soon enough it became something of a regular thing, and then Konstantin wanted to try other stuff and not always pay, and if Ivan ever protested, Konstantin would threaten to get him fired from the factory or tell his family what they were doing. Ivan knew that he couldn’t let this happen, and besides, this was a relationship, or so he would tell himself. It was rough and it wasn’t very enjoyable and he didn’t like the way it made him feel, but it was probably the best he was going to get, here in this place, so he had no choice but to put up with it.

Until one night when his older brother came to pick him up from work, which he didn’t usually do. Something about it set off Ivan’s alarm bells, but he got into Roman’s battered old Zhiguli anyway. They didn’t head back toward the house. Instead they headed for the country, the narrow, crumbling road that led into the vast forests of Krasnoyarsk Krai. The city was often voted one of the most beautiful in Siberia, surviving even its long periods of grim industrialization with something of its soul intact. It wasn’t as cold as Yakutsk or Oymyakon, the places where it stayed at sixty below zero all winter long and boiling water froze when you tossed it out the window. Winters only got down to a few degrees below, and in Russia, that was par for the course. Ivan loved his hometown, and he was used to the outdoors. He was a sportsman, a natural athlete. He played hockey, bandy, football, rugby, and basketball (surprisingly popular in Russia). He swam and boxed. He was tall and tough and muscled and most people never bothered him. But when the car coasted to a halt in the middle of nowhere and Roman turned off the headlights, he was still terrified.

His brother said, “I hear you’re doing things, Vanya.”

Ivan didn’t answer.

“I hear you’re doing things with men.” Roman reached over and grabbed him violently by the shoulders, pinning him against the seat. “Disgusting things. I will not have one of those in the family, do you hear me? Do you hear me? If I find out that you have done it ever again, even once, I will make sure that you pay the price. Are you listening? Say that you understand.”

“Yes,” Ivan said. “I understand.”

What he really understood was that he was going to leave, when he had barely been out of Krasnoyarsk Krai in his life. Going as far as Novosibirsk for a shopping trip was unusual, and once, in school, he went to Georgia, which was the first time he had left the country (though of course, it used to be the country). But he knew that he could not stay here anymore, and in a moment of welcome serendipity, that was also when his conscription notice arrived. At the time, every Russian man over the age of eighteen had to serve two obligatory years in the armed forces (though it has since been lowered to one, of which Ivan does not necessarily approve), and his number had come up. So he quit his job, did not say goodbye to Konstantin or tell him where he was going, packed his few boxes of things, and moved four thousand kilometers and four time zones west to Moscow.

Ivan arrived in the capital trying not to present himself as a wet-behind-the-ears country boy, to act like he knew what he was doing, to show he was much tougher and meaner than any of these spoiled, pampered little children whining about how hard it was when they trudged into headquarters and presented their army notices. In that, he had a genuine advantage; he had worked hard for his whole life, he had already been through whatever could possibly endured with a father and four brothers, and he found the strict routines, harsh discipline, and predictable tasks of the army comforting. Everyone was scared of him, he didn’t need to try (though he did), and that was also gratifying. He worked hard and pleased his commanders, who tried to entice him to stay on as a full-time professional serviceman. There were many opportunities for a man of his talents, and more money than Ivan had ever dreamed of. As for his personal life, as long as he was scrupulously discreet and kept turning in good results, they would not trouble to enquire too closely. That was already better than from what he had expected with Konstantin. Once again, he thought it would be the best he got.

That was where, therefore, he met Aleksander Ilyich Morozov.

Morozov was his opposite in many ways – rich, well-spoken, well-educated, the son of a legendary KGB commander and the inheritor of comfort and privilege even in the lean last days of the USSR. He was about Ivan’s own age, but he had a self-possession and a gravitas that made him seem older. He had started training for a career in the Russian security services practically from childhood, and he had pegged Ivan as a particularly promising recruit. “You should come with me,” he said. “We would find an excellent career for you.”

Ivan was never sure how to respond when Morozov started talking like this. He admired the man and was admittedly attracted to him – not just the dark, elegant handsomeness, but the manifest air of being a person who mattered, who made the rest of the world sit up and take notice and play by his rules – and while he knew that Morozov was ruthless, he wasn’t bothered by that and was willing to do the same when it was called for. Ivan didn’t see the world as some nice candy fairy place where good deeds were always rewarded and violence was always wrong, not least since he knew full well that it didn’t work like that. He didn’t have time for these idiots who thought they would get out there and hold hands and change the world with the power of sunshine and kisses or whatever it was. He didn’t.

Then there was one night when Morozov was at Ivan’s apartment, and they had been drinking and making big plans for ruling the world behind the scenes, and Ivan forgot himself entirely and leaned over the table and kissed him. He tried to pull back almost at once, but Morozov didn’t resist. In fact, he leaned in and put a hand behind Ivan’s head and kept him there, and in that moment, Ivan knew that while this might not be personally objectionable for Sasha (his sexuality was undiscussed but evidently fluid), that wasn’t the reason he was going along with it. It was because he knew instinctively that it was a perfect way to control Ivan, to harness his attraction and his weakness and his willingness to go along with whatever Sasha wanted, and in that, despite all the big plans they had put together and the way Ivan had dreamed of his life changing, it was just Konstantin all over again, and Ivan was straight back at the factory on his knees, small and cornered and powerless. It was visceral and it was wrong and it wasn’t the best he would ever do and he wasn’t, he wasn’t taking that.

They pulled back and Sasha made an enquiring noise, like he wanted to know if Ivan was interested in sealing the deal, and instead Ivan ordered him to leave right now, get out. That was the end of their friendship; they never spoke to each other again, and when his third year in the army ran out, which he had already taken voluntarily, he left. He got a job at some Moscow industrial plant and it was there, through the friend of a friend, he met Nadia Zhabina. And it turned out that she was queer (the first time he had ever heard the word spoken in a good way, something he wanted to be, something he didn’t mind accepting, rather than as an attack), and it turned out after that that she had a friend she wanted him to meet, only it clearly meant that she thought they should go out. Like. On a date.

Ivan flatly shut her down. He did not date, he did not want to date, he did not think he would be good at dating, he did not want to meet some pansy city boy from Nizhny Novgorod who he would immediately dislike, and he was not going to do it, the end. Only Nadia really seemed disappointed, and maybe it was not the worst thing to try a little. This would backfire terribly, he would get over it, and move on with his life.

In Ivan’s opinion, the first date with Fedyor Mikhailovich Kaminsky was, at least on his own behalf, a modest success. He was unavoidably late, thanks to the bus running behind schedule, but he introduced himself, his hobbies, and made it clear what sort of person he was and what he was interested in. He even sent a polite follow-up text with an invitation to meet again. There. No questions, no confusion, everything very straightforward and clear. Nothing to complain about. That was how you did a date, yes?

It turned out, however, that Fedyor Mikhailovich was either very reticent, or perhaps confused, or maybe he did not even know that they had been on a date and Nadia had not clearly explained to him. Burned by his experiences at home, knowing how easily word could get out to the wrong people, Ivan did not want to bring up the subject explicitly, but he had to admit to a considerable confusion. Maybe Fedyor actually liked to just mince around Moscow city parks together, like something out of a Tolstoy novel, or to sit on his couch and watch bad American action movies together. (Later, Ivan learned that Die Hard is actually something of a cult classic, but it’s still slightly lost on him.) That wasn’t bad, because Ivan – to his great bafflement and wariness – liked spending time with him. Fedyor wasn’t like him at all, but they clicked nonetheless. He was the exact kind of idealistic activist that Ivan had long disdained, but it was different with him. When Fedya talked, he liked to listen, to dream about a world that really did work that way. It didn’t, but it felt closer.

Besides that, he was cute. He was well-put together. He was charming and vivacious and could talk to people that they met, while Ivan stood scowling with his hands in his pockets and wondered how long this was going to take. He really desperately wanted to kiss Fedya (and for that matter, do other things to him), and he found himself thinking about it a lot. But what if it was like with Sasha again, and it was either Ivan opportunistically taking it for himself, or Fedya selfishly trying to keep him there, to use him for his own purposes? Maybe Fedya was the idiot. He had to know they were together, right? Or were they together? Ivan suddenly wasn’t sure. Damn it! Why didn’t Fedyor subscribe to the school of just being clear about things? Ivan himself had nothing to do with the problem.

But then there came that night, and Fedya cooking dinner and stumbling through trying to ask him if they were maybe something, and in that moment, Ivan found it all so hilarious that the only thing he could do was sit there and let the whole thing play out. Then it turned out, of course, that they were together, and that Fedyor kissed him just as deliciously as Ivan had imagined, and maybe Nadia Zhabina was not so wrong after all.

Maybe she was not wrong in the least.

Ivan takes his supermarket bags to the sunny kitchen of the mostly-remodeled apartment and sets them down. Fedya has picked out all the colors and wallpapers and furniture and paint, and Ivan has done most of the work, since he is gainfully employed as a handyman and repair-person and he doesn’t want to pay some American to half-ass a job that he can do better. The apartment is really quite lovely now. The living room has been done in a pale, springy green, the white plaster moldings washed and repaired, all the junk of the previous owner finally cleared out except for one or two collectibles that they decided to keep. There’s a bookshelf and a desk filled with Fedya’s work things, a couch and a television and a coffee table and new curtains. The bedroom is big and airy, with a ceiling fan and new carpets. Framed pictures and art pieces hang on the wall. It looks like a place where real people live.

Ivan makes breakfast, cooking and stirring and brewing the coffee, and puts it all on a tray. It’s Saturday, so of course Fedya is still asleep, and Ivan pads through the apartment to the closed bedroom door, balancing the tray on his hip long enough to open it and cast a strip of light inside. It takes a moment, but Fedyor rolls over, groggy and tousled and very, very cute with his bed-headed dark hair and squinting eyes. “Vanya? What smells so good?”

“Happy birthday, my love.” Ivan sets the tray on the bedside table and leans down to kiss him, as Fedyor makes a happy humming sound and throws his arms around Ivan’s neck, cuddling against him like a barnacle. “I have made you breakfast.”

(His younger self was wrong, and he has never been so glad of it.)

(This was the best, this is the best, this was waiting for him, this kind of happiness could happen for him, and he is grateful beyond all words that he fought for it and believed it until it did.)

Eli had his first screen test of sorts today for his upcoming new project. He's never been on camera before, aside from the storytime stream, so he was a little nervous but it's just at the library and it's just a test right?

Apparently not.

We get there and they've got just a lot more stuff set up than you'd expect and someone comes up to him and says "oh, I'm glad you're here. We go live in 20."

I thought I'd have to catch his stomach as it fell out of his ass. He immediately turns to look at me.

"Well...it's been a pleasure being married to you. When I die of a heart attack in 19 minutes you can have my dog."

Some girl comes up with a button up shirt and a pair of pants and asks him if he needs help changing. I actually really don't like the way she asks but he just laughs and says he's sober enough to do it himself. The bathroom is occupied so he changes in his office and when he's done the same girl grabs him by the hand and deposits him into a nearby chair.

"I don't think you're gonna need that much coverage...you already look really really good."

BITCH WHAT?

She applies concealer to his undereyes WITH HER FINGER, rice powders him, and proclaims him "perfect". It's then that she reaches down and UNDOES THREE OF HIS SHIRT BUTTONS.

"You wanna look hot for the moms, right?"

He turns sideways, crossing one leg over the other away from her, and begins buttoning himself back up while glaring at her and deadpanning: "No. Not especially."

Shortly after, someone I've met before but can't remember the name of then OR now, comes up and tells him he's meant to conduct an interview. Shoves a list of questions at him. He asks where the subject is, so he can get comfortable with them and they tell him the dude isn't there yet.

"He should be here before we start though."

SHOULD.

This is when he gets up and heads for the back door and part of me is afraid he's peacing out completely. But I'm mostly enjoying watching him leave because HOLYYYY SHIT those pants are really working. Man's ass is out of control. I kinda want to bite it, pinch it , something. I almost follow him out but no one can know storytime guy married a lustful, tattooed miscreant so I stay where I am while the makeup girl follows him out instead.

He comes back looking even more irritated and he has 5 minutes before they start. At 2 minutes, his subject shows up. It's all a flurry and suddenly they've started.

The guy I know but don't introduces them both, completely butchering Eli's last name which just gets a tiny lopsided smile from Eli. He's just gonna let it go by, but the guy apologizes and tries three more times, every time worse than the last. Finally, he just let's Eli do it, and then asks him if he's Russian...which earns a very strong "Ukrainian, proudly". If anyone caught the vague political statement in this, I can't tell.

The interview goes extremely well. Makeup girl is not wrong, he is perfect. Doesn't stumble. No dead air. No filler. He doesn't look nervous at all...I think that only I can tell he's shitting it internally. It's like it should be, like he wanted when he sat down with them to conceptualize this...open, friendly, human.

When they wrap up, he finds me immediately and picks me up to kiss me. His hands are shaking.

He tells me when we get home that when the makeup girl followed him out, she unbuttoned one of his back pockets and stuck something in there. Her phone number on a gum wrapper. I feel like telling me when she was no longer in striking distance was a good move.

"SO, ARE YOU GOING TO CALL HER THEN?" Jealousy is soooooo fucking ugly but I can't help it.

I'm sitting on the bed, and he's at the closet shedding those gorgeously tight pants. He wheels around on me, pushes me onto my back and kneels down. He hands me the wrapper and grabs the waistband of my pants, pulling.

"Call her while I do this, let her know who I belong to."

chapter 11 paragraph viii

Inside the parking garage, which vibrated depressingly with olive-green light, there were a number of empty spaces in the long-term area despite the Full sign. As we nosed into the space a man in a sports coat lounging against a white Range Rover threw his cigarette in a spit of orange cinders and walked toward the car. His receding hairline, his tinted aviators and his taut military torso gave him the wind-whipped look of an ex-pilot, a man who monitored delicate instruments at some test site in the Urals. “Victor,” he said, when we got out of the car, crushing my hand in his. Gyuri and Boris received a thump on the back. After terse preliminaries in Russian, a baby-faced curly-headed teenager climbed out of the driver’s seat and was greeted, by Boris, with a slap on the cheek and a jaunty seven note whistle: On the Good Ship Lollipop. “This is Shirley T,” he said to me, rumpling the corkscrew curls. “Shirley Temple. We all call him that—why? Can you guess?”—laughing as the kid, unable to help it, smiled in embarrassment, displaying deep dimples. “Do not be deceived by looks,” said Gyuri to me quietly. “Shirley looks like baby but he has as much onions as any of us here.” Politely, Shirley nodded at me—did he speak English? it didn’t seem so— and opened the back door of the Range Rover for us and the three of us climbed in—Boris, Gyuri, and me—while Victor Cherry sat up front and talked to us from the passenger seat. “This should be easy,” he said to me formally as we pulled out of the garage and back out onto the Overtoom. “Straightforward pawn.” Up close his face was broad and knowing, with a small prim mouth and a wry alertness that made me feel somewhat less agitated about the logic of the evening, or the lack of it: the car changes, the lack of direction and information, the nightmare foreignness. “We are doing Sascha a favor and because of that? He is going to behave nice to us.” Long low buildings. Disjointed lights. There was a sense that it wasn’t happening, that it was happening to someone who wasn’t me. “Because can Sascha walk in bank and get a loan on the painting?” Victor was saying, pedantically. “No. Can Sascha walk in a pawn shop and get a loan on the painting? No. Can Sascha due to circumstances of theft go to any of his usual connections from Horst and get a loan on the painting? No. Therefore Sascha is extremely glad of the appearance of mystery American—you—who I have hooked him up with.” “Sascha shoots heroin the way that you and I breathe,” said Gyuri to me quietly. “One stitch of money and he is out buying big load of drugs like clockwork.” Victor Cherry adjusted his glasses. “Exactly. He is not art lover and he is not particular. He is utilizing picture like high interest credit card or so he thinks. Investment for you—cash for him. You front him the money—you hold the painting as security—he buys schmeck, keeps half, steps on the rest and sells it, and returns with double your money in one month to pick up the painting. And if? In one month he does not return with double your money? The painting is yours. Like I said. Simple pawn.”

“Except not so simple—” Boris stretched, and yawned—“because when you vanish? and bank draft is bad? What can he do? If he runs to Horst and calls for help on this one he will have his neck broken for him.” “I am glad they have changed the meeting place so many times. It is a little bit ridiculous. But it helps because today is Friday,” said Victor, taking off his aviators and polishing them on his shirt. “I made them think you were backing out. Because they kept cancelling and changing the plan—you did not even arrive until today, but they do not know that—because they kept changing the plan I told them you were tired and nervous of sitting around Amsterdam with suitcase of green waiting to hear from them, you’d rebanked your moneys and were flying back to U.S. They did not like to hear that. So—” he nodded at the bag—“here it is the weekend, and banks are closed, and you are bringing what cash you have, and—well, they have been talking to me plenty, lots of time on the phone and I have met with them once already down in a bar in the Red Light, but they have agreed to bring the painting and make the exchange tonight without prior meeting of you, because I have told them your plane leaves tomorrow, and because they have fucked around on their end it is bank draft for the balance or nothing. Which —well, they did not like, but they accepted as proper explanation for bank draft. Makes things easier.” “Much easier,” said Boris. “I was not sure how bank draft was going to go over. Better if they think the bank draft is their own fault for dicking around.” “What’s the place?” “Lunchcafe.” He pronounced it as one word. “De Paarse Koe.” “That means ‘the Purple Cow’ in Dutch,” said Boris helpfully. “Hippie place. Close to the Red Light.” Long lonely street—shut-up hardware stores, stacks of brick by the side of the road, all of it important and hyper-significant somehow even though it was speeding by in the dark much too fast to see. “Food is so awful,” said Boris. “Sprouts and some hard old wheat toast. You would think hot girls go there but is just old gray-head women and fat.” “Why there?” “Because quiet street in the evening,” said Victor Cherry. “Lunchcafe is closed, after hours, but because semi-public nothing will get out of control, see?” Everywhere: strangeness. Without noticing it I’d left reality and crossed the border into some no-man’s-land where nothing made sense. Dreaminess, fragmentation. Rolled wire and piles of rubble with the plastic sheeting blown to the side. Boris was speaking to Victor in Russian; and when he realized I was looking at him, he turned to me. “We are only saying, Sascha is in Frankfurt tonight,” he said, “hosting party at a restaurant for some friend of his just got out of jail, and we are all of us confirmed on this from three different sources, Shirley too. He thinks he is being smart, staying out of town. If it gets back to Horst what has happened here tonight he wants to be able to throw up his hands and say, ‘Who, me? I had nothing to do with it.’ ” “You,” said Victor to me, “you are based in New York. I have said you are an art dealer, arrested for forgery, and now run an operation like Horst’s— much smaller scale in terms of paintings, much larger in terms of money.” “Horst—God bless him,” said Boris. “Horst would be the richest man in New York except he gives it all away, every cent. Always has. Supports many many persons besides himself.” “Bad for business.” “Yes. But he enjoys company.” “Junkie philanthropist, ha,” said Victor. He pronounced it philanthropist. “Good they die off time to time or who knows how many schmeckheads crammed in that dump with him. Anyway—less you say in there, the better. They will not be expecting polite conversation. This is all business. It will be fast. Give him the bank draft, Borya.” Boris said something sharp in Ukrainian. “No, he should produce it himself. It should be from his hand.” Both bank draft, and deposit slip, were printed with the words Farruco Frantisek, Citizen Bank Anguilla, which only increased the sense of dream trajectory, a

track speeding up too fast to slow down. “Farruco Frantisek? I’m him?” Under the circumstances it felt like a meaningful question—as if I might be somehow disembodied or at least had passed beyond a certain horizon where I was freed of basic facts like identity. “I did not choose the name. I had to take what I could get.” “I’m supposed to introduce myself as this?” There was something wrong with the paper, which was too flimsy, and the fact that the slips said Citizen Bank and not Citizen’s Bank made them look all wrong. “No, Cherry will introduce you.”

Farruco Frantisek. Silently I tried the name out, turned my tongue around it. Even though it was a hard name to remember, it was just strong and foreign enough to carry the lost-in-space hyperdensity of the black streets, tram tracks, more cobblestones and neon angels—back in the old city now, historic and unknowable, canals and bicycle racks and Christmas lights shaking on the dark water. “When were you going to tell him?” Victor Cherry was asking Boris. “He needs to know what his name is.” “Well now he knows.” Unknown streets, incomprehensible turns, anonymous distances. I’d stopped even trying to read the street signs or keep track of where we were. Of everything around me—of all I could see—the only point of reference was the moon, riding high above the clouds, which though bright and full seemed weirdly unstable somehow, void of gravity, not the pure anchoring moon of the desert but more like a party trick that might pop out at a conjurer’s wink or else float away into the darkness and out of sight.

1 for boreo my good sir

one : “don’t give me false hope.” + boreo

warnings : suicide mention, suicidal thoughts, drug use, alcohol use

word count : 780

when the days there stretched on, maybe, theo thought, this could last forever.

boris sat on the couch, the only thing between him and theo was a remote. the room was dark and the movie play screen looped. it was something they had picked up when boris had spent an hour fretting about losing his russian.

it was the things that had slipped theo’s mind day after day, seeing boris setting groceries on the counter in the kitchen, the intricate rituals of phone call after phone call slurred ukrainian ringing in his ears. that somehow this was healing after all. his therapist had reminded him often that he was supposed to be looking for the little things. so it was the painting that hung above the television, the bowl of fruit that neither of them touched. it was in popchyk cuddling close to his chest on cold nights. this was how he continued on.

he hadn’t started to work again since the move, things still felt so heavy after what happened. just leaving the one bedroom apartment was an accomplishment. the decision to move together after everything was a rash one made entirely by boris. theo followed behind, glad to not have to worry about decision making too much. afterwards, though, boris had tried taking it slow with him, but work never stopped and he would spend most days gone. 

“if you want, i take time off, more than enough money in the bank. i could stay here.” boris looked hopefully at theo, whose eyes sayed hidden behind a reflection of the television in his glasses. “i could stay home.” 

theo felt sick to his stomach, the idea of boris spending his days seeing him not getting any better hung on theo. he wondered if maybe spending 11 years of his life attached to suicidal idealizations had fucked him up more than his friend’s company could fix. that, sure, while he did do weekly sessions with a therapist and was taking medications actually prescribed to him for once, he didn’t feel any different. 

but he smiled, shaking his head no, placing his hand on top of boris’. “i couldn’t ask you to do that.” there was the lingering sense, the same one from when he was fourteen, that someone would see him and think they were together. however, the only onlooker was popchyk who was rather happily laying in boris’ lap.

boris could see through theo, sharing the same bed meant that he knew that the other still couldn’t shake the nightmares that kept him up in high school, but his demeanor didn’t change. “are you sure? would be my pleasure, it’s least i can do.”

being with theo was a lot like being fifteen again, the lines of their friendship were just as blurred as they were then, that adulthood had only made things more confusing. the only thing boris still shared with his former self was a lack of shame, but guilt plagued his mind anytime he got too close. all of the bad things had still felt like his fault. 

but theo was persistent, “i don’t need you here watching over me.” his words came a little more harsh this time.

“i’m not! simply trying to help you! thought maybe you might want some company, but it’s fine! fuck boris, right potter?”

he immediately felt guilty, shaking his head, “no- i just mean, you being here isnt going to change anything. it doesn’t make things magically better.”

boris set his hand on theos shoulder, trying to comfort him, “is going to get better, i promise.”

“don’t give me false hope, you can’t promise anything.” theo snapped. often times he didn’t even know why he was even trying, “you keep saying that i’m gonna get better, is there something wrong with how i am now?”

boris looked at him disbelievingly, there was a stiffled laugh, was he joking. “you don’t leave house for days, you would rather sleep on couch then in bed, you don’t sleep even then just pace apartment for hours! i mean what am i supposed to think? i just want to help? i care about you- i love you.”

the words hung between him, the only phrase theo knew how to keep bottled up, that as a drunk everything flew freely but even then he denied himself the simple pleasure of the three words that danced circles around his teenage years. years of denying and shoving everything down to please others, to uphold the pressure of everything that weighed him down. that saying it would make him someone his mother wouldn’t want even though it was never anything she had expressed.

“i love you.”

love isn’t supposed to hurt; boreo; 2.8k

my second boreo fic since the first one got nice feedback!

tw// child abuse and violence

He had been hit. I wasn’t used to seeing Boris upset; he generally took it surprisingly lightheartedly when his dad hit him, laughing it off and telling me “Is okay, Potter! He loves me.” He would assure me that his father would apologize for the abuse, and that it would all be okay tomorrow. That he didn’t know how to show his affection, but that he loved him nonetheless. But he looked upset then, and hurt. A dark bruise was already forming on his eye, his nose was leaking a constant stream of blood, and he was limping. The pain he was in was palpable. I felt sick just looking at him, and seeing tears in his eyes was almost enough to make me cry. He never cried.

He had made me stay in his room that night, begging me to remain quiet while he went to deal with his father. I could hear his dad yelling. Russian, or Ukrainian maybe. I couldn’t tell the difference back then. I heard Boris speak back, and then a bang and a scream. Mr. Pavlikovsky’s cane against Boris’ face, and then what I can only assume were his boots against Boris’ curled up body once he was on the ground. I could hear Boris screaming, and I quietly begged whoever would listen to make it end. The sounds of the cane and Boris’ screams and the volatile Russian were enough to make me panic even before I saw Boris. After what felt like hours of hearing Boris scream and whimper in pain through a closed door, I saw him. The blood on his face and the tears in his eyes and a bruise that obscured almost half of his face. He limped towards the edge of the bed, where I had been sitting and failing to ignore the sounds that were coming from the house’s first floor, and collapsed onto me. His breathing was heavy, his blood stained my shirt, and he was shaking violently. A panic attack. Boris was usually the one to comfort me, stroking my back through my nightmares and wrapping his arms around me when I cried. I took a page out of his book and grabbed onto him, squeezing him in the way that had always been comforting to me. “Shhh, shhh,” I whispered. “You’re okay, it’s okay. I’m here.”

“Is not okay, Potter.” Boris sounded awful, the words coming out in between jagged breaths. “I cannot breath.” His blood had completely soaked through my shirt, and his tears were beginning to create a wet spot as well.

“You’re right, it’s not okay. I know. What he does to you is not okay, Boris. But you will be. You’re going to be okay, Boris. You just need to breath.” I echoed the things Boris had said to me in the past. That what happened to me wasn’t okay, but that I would be okay. I didn’t believe any of it when he said it to me, but it seemed appropriate now. Boris was still shaking, so I held onto him tighter. I had never seen him cry like this, never seen him such a mess. “Breath with me Boris. Listen.” I took long, deep breaths, holding them in for a couple of seconds before letting them out. He didn’t lift his head from my chest, but I could feel him breathing. “Good, keep doing that.”

“I should not cry,” he choked out. “He hears me cry he will just beat me more.” His breathing had slowed a bit, but it was nowhere near normal and he was clearly still distressed.

“He’s gone, Boris. He left. I heard him go.”

“Yes, but sometimes he does not go. I cannot get into habit of crying, Potter. I don’t want him to hit me more.”

I had never heard Boris admit that he didn’t want to be hit. Nobody wants to be hit, but Boris usually played off his father’s abuse with such casual nonchalance that the admission was startling to me. “Come live with me, Boris. You can stay at my place as long as you want.”

“You know I cannot,” Boris sighed. “I can stay there when he’s not here, but he will not let me leave for good.” He looked up at me for the first time since he’d come into the room. The blood from his nose was still running, down his lips but also smeared on his face from his time against my shirt. His eye looked almost swollen, and the bruise was getting darker. He looked as if he had been in a fight, and I must have visibly reacted because he smirked at me, crooked teeth and all before asking “That bad, Potter?” He was still crying, but he had calmed down enough to crack jokes, which came as a big relief to me.

“We should clean it,” I said. “Your nose, I mean. And your face.”

“Okay. Just one more minute, Potter.” He put his face back into my shirt, wrapped his arms around my neck, and stayed like that for a little while. He was trying to control his breathing, I think, and after a bit of silence he looked back up at me and said “Lets go.”

I walked with him to the bathroom, him leaning heavily on me and my arms around him. The hall was dark, and the house seemed eerily quiet now without hearing Boris crying and his father screaming. “Do you have any washcloths?” I asked, sitting Boris down on the closed toilet seat.

“Probably not. We have nothing here,’’ he answered. “Check the cabinet, maybe?” He was right. There were no washcloths in the cabinet, and also nothing in the cabinet at all.

“Nothing.”

“Figures.” He laughed a little, then rubbed his hand under his nose, smearing the blood there all around. He looked at his hand afterwards and moaned “It still is not stopping. Do I put my head back?”

‘Uhh, no? I think tilt it forward to get the blood out.” I really didn’t know, but the thought of the blood going down Boris’ throat from his nose didn’t seem good. “Here.” I pulled off my shirt, already ruined from Boris’ blood, and put it under his nose. When he tilted his head forward, blood started to flow in a steady stream, dripping onto the shirt but mostly covering his lips and chin. When the blood finally stopped flowing, I stuck the clean and dry part of my now completely blood covered shirt under the tap, getting the fabric wet. “Put your head up now,” I told Boris. “We should probably clean it.”

“Give it to me, Potter.” He held his hand out, and I gave him the shirt. He rubbed the damp fabric on his face, moving the blood under his nose and on his lips around until it was mostly gone. “Good?”

“Yeah, I guess.” There wasn’t much we could do other than clean up the blood and watch as Boris’ bruise darkened. He said no when I suggested we just call the police and get his dad arrested, because like me, he would have had nowhere else to go. He was worried that they’d deport him or stick him in foster care, and I couldn’t blame him for being afraid. “You should probably change your clothes. They have blood all over them.” While my pants were clean, Boris’ were covered in splatters of blood.

“Here,” he said, pulling off his shirt and pants and handing them to me. We were far beyond the point of being embarrassed around each other, but Boris hugged his arms around his chest anyways, like he was cold and trying to warm himself. I could see the bruises on his side now. “I think maybe he broke a rib,” Boris admitted. “It fucking hurts.”

“You should go lay down,” I told Boris. “Try not to move around too much or lay on it weird, though. I’m gonna go throw this stuff in the wash.”

I walked Boris back to his room, his weight on me in a way I wasn’t used to. He was a good head taller than me, but I’d always assumed he was light simply because he was so thin. He didn’t feel light, though. He felt like dead weight, and finally getting him into his room was a relief. He sat on the edge of his bed, then took a deep breath before slowly leaning back until his head was on the bed but his feet were still hanging off. “I’ll be right back,” I promised. “Just try and relax.” Boris gave a noncommittal groan that I took to mean yes, and I went as quickly as I could to the small laundry room down the hall, picking the dirty clothes up from the bathroom floor and counter. I didn’t know how to get blood stains out of clothes, so I just stuck my shirt and Boris’ shirt and pants into the machine with some detergent.

I had hoped Boris would have put some clothes on, but once I got back to his room I found him exactly as I had left him. Naked except for his underwear, laying on the edge of the bed. “Aren’t you cold?” I asked him. “You should at least get under the covers.” The winters in Las Vegas were colder than I thought they would be, and Boris’ house didn’t have much in terms of heating. The two of us had spent many nights sleeping on Boris’ bed, our limbs tangled together to keep warm. Boris didn’t answer, and he didn’t move, so I kicked my pants off and got under the covers of his bed as best I could. “Boris, come.”

Slowly, he pushed himself up onto the bed, until his head was near mine. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I don’t want to make you worry.” He got under the blanket with me, and I wrapped my arms around him. His skin was cool to the touch and his ribs jutted out. It was a sickly reminder of how malnourished he actually was, subsisting almost entirely on a diet of beer, vodka, and bread with sugar. “I should not cry in front of you, Potter. You are easily upset and I do not want to bother you with this. I’m sorry.” He sounded panicked, like he couldn’t control what he was saying.

“Don’t apologize, Boris. He treats you horribly. You don’t have to lie to me and say it’s okay, or lie and say he actually loves you.” I was stroking his back now, where his spine stuck out more than it should have. “This house doesn’t have clean water, and you don’t have food, and it isn’t because he can’t afford it. It’s because he doesn’t care. You deserve better.”

“He is trying his best, Potter. He loves me.”

“No, Boris. He isn’t. He can leave for weeks at a time if he wants. Fine. But leaving you here with nothing to eat and then coming home only to beat you isn’t his best. That’s not love. He spends all his money on vodka, and he leaves nothing for you.” I was getting upset. I had seen the way Boris lived, and despite all of his proclamations that it was fine, I got a strong and distinct feeling that it wasn’t. “I know you don’t want to get hit, Boris.”

“No,” he admitted. “I do not.” He seemed on the verge of tears again, his breathing getting heavy. He sounded as if he was trying to hold back sobs for a minute, but he wasn’t very successful. I could feel the sobs wrack his body, starting all at once and not stopping.

“Shh, relax.” I rubbed his spine some more, and hugged him closer to keep him warm.

“I can’t.” He seemed to be in the midst of another anxiety attack. He had just calmed himself down less than 20 minutes before, but his anxiety was back full force. I heard him trying to do the deep breathing I had showed him before, but after a minute he said “Is not working, Potter. I’m going to die, I think.”

“No you’re not,” I promised.

“It hurts so bad.” He was crying, and his hands rested above the hand I had on his ribs. I continued to stroke his back with one hand, and interlocked our fingers with the other. We laid like that for a while: my left hand rubbing Boris’ spine and my right clasped hard in his. He was squeezing it tight, the way I used to squeeze my mother’s hand when I was afraid. She was gone now, but I could remember the feeling of her hand on mine, comforting me. Boris never had anyone to hold his hand when he was afraid. I don’t think he ever had anyone to love him, not truly.

“Boris,” I said quietly, like I was telling him a secret. And maybe I was, but it was one I was pretty sure he already knew, at least to some extent. “I love you, you know.”

“Yeah?” He didn’t seem so sure. For Boris, love was violence. The only person in the world who should have been obligated to love him treated him like shit, and he undoubtedly conflated that treatment with love in his head.

“Yeah. And I’d never hurt you. Love isn’t supposed to hurt. You shouldn’t have to get beat for it or starve for it. Stop making excuses for him, Boris.”

“Is so hard, Potter,” he admitted. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I know.” He had stopped sobbing, but there were still tears in his eyes. “I just want you to know that you don’t deserve that, Boris. You don’t deserve to be treated the way he treats you. You deserve everything good in the world.” I paused, and took my hand off his back to wipe the tears from his eyes. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time, and you deserve nothing but happiness.”

“That would be nice, eh? If we got what we deserved, your mother wouldn’t be dead and I would be back in Indonesia. The people there were so good to me, Potter. Here? They look at me funny and don’t listen to what I say.” He had told me before about his time in Indonesia, converting to Islam because of his love for the people there. His Islamic name: Badr al-Dine, an homage to the full moon.

“But then we wouldn’t have met. I miss her every day, Boris, but meeting you was the one good thing to come out of all of this. I couldn’t do this without you.” I looked at him, then. Blood dried around his nose, a massive bruise covering nearly half of his face, his gaunt features and crooked teeth. He was beautiful in a sort of starving way, like there was always something more he needed.

He smiled at me, and said “I am glad we have met, though the circumstances were not the best. You are all I have here, Potter.”

We didn’t move that night, staying nearly naked under the covers. We kept our bodies pressed to one another to stay warm, though I took more caution than usual due to Boris’ suspected broken rib. I watched him as he slept, delicate and beautiful in a way that probably would have made him self conscious had he been able to see how he looked. His dark eyelashes against his almost sickly pale white skin, his bony limbs, and the delicate rise and fall of his chest. His breathing had finally evened out in sleep, and his anxiety had probably tired him, as he passed out shortly after we finished our conversation. I didn’t sleep much that night. I spent the hours mostly watching Boris and making sure that he was okay. He didn’t wake up from any nightmares like I usually did, and didn’t toss and turn in his sleep at all. When I did sleep, I rested my head in the crook of Boris’ neck, thanking a nameless higher power for bringing me to Las Vegas when it did. Out of anywhere in the world that I could have ended up, and at any time in history, I was fortunate enough to exist in the same place and time as Boris Pavlikovsky, and that was a privilege. Knowing and loving Boris was possibly the greatest thing that every happened to me. I sometimes can’t help but think he deserved someone better than me, someone who could have truly loved him without hurting him at all, but I also can’t help but think that there is nobody in the world who could have loved Boris more than I did then.

read on ao3

Pyromania (Bucky x Reader)

A/N: This is my first time posting writing and I would love literally any feedback at all! I’m honestly terrified to put my shit writing out there but I may as well suck it up and just do it! The ‘reader’ is Korean and her last name is Kang. The face reference is optional but it’s helped me get a better idea in my mind of how she looks.

  Summary: (Winter Soldier-Endgame Insert) You’re an enhanced HYDRA agent who negotiated her way out of being a weapon. You’re now the nurse/ aid of the Winter Soldier. You end up escaping with him and follow him in and out of danger while slowly developing feelings for each other.

Words: 1950 (approx) Chapter: 1/?

Kang Y/N, age 16

  I think one of my worst habits is looking at the clock. I know he’s scheduled to arrive back at 9pm for check-up but that will never stop me from obsessively glancing at the clocks in the hallway, in the kitchen, in his room while I methodically go through the nightly routine. Pick up toiletries and first aid kit, hand in the dinner slip for his food, eat dinner myself, change the sheets, pick up his night clothes for the week from the laundry.   I find myself done, having gone on autopilot and finished the routine quicker than usual. I hang around near where the soldiers usually file in after the training session. A few other nurses happen to be there too, waiting on their soldiers. Given that there’s only six of us with supersoldiers, we know each other quite well.

  All the other nurses are assigned to other enhanced, are put on general service, are sent on missions or are thrown into the front lines of warzones and therefore operate on different schedules.    “Hey Kang, how’s big-shot Soldat going, huh?” Sasha offers a grin and I shake my head at the tall Russki.    “He’s well. So far. How’s your girl going?”    “Great as far as I can tell! She’s not the most talkative though. Bit of a shame. Bet you and Soldat are getting along perfectly,” I send him a disappointed glare but it doesn’t take long to crack into a smile.   It’s hard to be frustrated with Sash. He’s too nice and too young. Well, he may be older than me physically but he entered this work much later than I did, not that I had a choice.     “Don’t forget which one of us is the Level 7, Vasiliev. I’ll kick your ass and you know it,” I prod his side and make a show of adjusting my armband with a large ‘7’ embroidered onto the red cross. He feigns fear but before he can continue with his teasing the doors open and in file the soldiers. I lock eyes with my soldier before waving to Sash, “See you at showers, yeah?” He sends me a thumbs up and saunters off behind his soldier. Soldat has already begun marching towards his room.    I jog to catch up with him and almost start telling him off before I see the glint in his eyes. There’s so little room for fun around here and he’s rarely in a good enough mood to be teasing so it’s difficult to be annoyed. Once we arrive at the room however, he sits down and the extent of today’s training becomes clear. I can see his bloody face and twitching metal arm. Ok, so maybe not so much in a good mood.    “Might need to relocate my other shoulder,” His Russian is harsh and unnatural but not accented like mine. It’s different to the other soldiers and guards here, who are all native speakers. I make a mental note of his tone before I pick up the clothes, first aid kit and toiletries and we walk towards the showers. He tries to take them from me but I smack his hands away and force him to walk in front of me.   Now, the showers leave a lot to be desired. A large room with lockers and shelves in the center and lining the left and right walls are blue curtains containing a shelf and a shower head. On the back wall are sinks and mirrors. At least we have hot water and it was clean. But the smell of blood and misery clung to the room no matter how often it was cleaned.   Soldat led the way past several of his fellow soldiers before sliding the curtain shut in our usual spot. Unlike the nurses who served individuals like Sasha and I, the soldiers were unfriendly to the extreme with each other, no sense of community or friendship. I’m not complaining though. I enjoy having my soldier to myself, he’s easy to get along with and it was already far too stressful getting used to just him. I didn’t need others to deal with. They’ve all got different personalities, none of them easy-going, and one of them has anger issues.   He strips the soaked training clothes off and hangs them carelessly on the shelf before kneeling down and allowing me to examine his injuries. A few cuts, presumably from punches, on his face, blood still dripping from his nose and mouth, a broken rib that’s quickly healing and his shoulder is bruised and tender but not dislocated. I mop the blood off his face and mutter to myself in Korean. He listens with interest.   He’s been learning Korean from me lately, giving us more time together since we’re given a block of time to study. All the soldiers must know 30 languages and any extras to the ones already taught (like my Korean dialect) are accommodated with a block of study time.   I double check his rib. Definitely broken but also definitely healing. The enhanced healing still freaks me out. I was not taught about how to deal with it when I went through my two years of medical training. I had to get used to it and teach myself. I realise I’m going to need to get morphine from the officials. Otherwise we won’t be sleeping tonight.    “Would you like me to get you a recovery day?” I ask in slow, deliberate Korean. I can give my soldier any number of recovery days throughout the year, being his nurse. It usually means an extra day of study rather than training and extra food. Or being sent to cryo.    “Ani,” He shakes his head, “I have the mission next day,” His Korean isn’t perfect, which is endearing since he’s perfect at practically everything else. I shrug in response, though I’m upset he refuses most recovery days. I do know that the officials are meticulous about whether the quality of a soldier begins to degrade but he hasn’t taken any for a long time.     “If you say so,” I sigh but continue disinfecting his cuts and then tell him to wait.   Slipping outside I can see Ira and Nadiya are stripping their outer layers off. Although I haven’t had much opportunity to experience outside life I know nudity like this would not fly outside of this environment. Here, nudity is hardly any issue. The soldiers are used to it for physical examinations and medical exams and their nightly routine. Nurses are unbothered by nudity since we perform plenty of medical duties requiring naked soldiers and all that.   So, we all exchange a few words while hanging our dresses, armbands and hats up and putting our shoes on shelves. We talk about the quality of the food going up since the sixties and whether we’re supposed to attend a medical training session in the next month or so. We’re updated annually on the medical advancements outside of our little world.   I slide back into our cubicle and find the water running. I step further in and my underclothes are immediately soaked. He turns around and offers me a tired smile, twirling the end of my braid with his normal fingers. I smile back and take a shaky breath. I set about washing the sweat out of his hair with shampoo and while he rubs the blood off himself, I begin scrubbing his metal arm. The blood, sweat and dirt builds up easily in the gaps and if it were left to him, the stupid arm would be rusted by now. I went out of my way to request special cleaning equipment for his arm and luckily was granted it.   While we do this, we speak in Korean to help his learning and after a while he seems to relax. It never fails to surprise me when his aggressive personality melts away into the calm man that only I see. I massage his tense muscles with the aid of the hot water and eventually it’s time for dinner and ‘winding down’. For wind down, some soldiers, like a particularly angry man, are sent to the psychs for an hour before they’re put in cryo or bed.  By the time we’re out, everyone’s already begun changing, nurses and soldiers alike. There’s no interaction between soldiers, they seem to be in their own little worlds, but the nurses are happily socialising with each other. I change into clean underclothes and my night dress - a white, floor-length dress with an apron and pin my armbands securely on my upper arms - while I listen to Sasha talking about the pains of acquiring painkillers from the officials.   Paracetamol, ibuprofen and other basic drugs don’t make a dent in the pain our soldiers endure. Quicker healing is great and all but it’s considerably more painful. It takes a lot of convincing as well as a full medical report to get the higher-ups to give us the morphine they need. We all agree and chime in to add points to strengthen the argument.   Eventually, we all clear out of the steamy room and continue chatting all the way down to the living quarters. Two of the soldiers split off with their nurses for cryo prep and we all wave, knowing it’ll be awhile before we see those four.   The guards in this part of the facility must be constantly unnerved by the sound. Usually the base is all business, soldiers and guards and nurses silently carrying out their schedules but the six of us that cater to the supersoldiers are unafraid to be happy and loud. It creates a sense of community and we wouldn’t get that outside of this environment. In any case, the guards can’t touch us unless we pose a direct threat. So, we all spend our time walking laughing and talking in a blend of languages. All of us are multilingual since we travel with our soldiers. So, the guards and officials, who often only speak German or Russian or both are even less comfortable since our usual chatter is a mix of Ukrainian, French and pieces of German and they presumably really don’t like not understanding what we’re saying. It’s mostly just a lot of joking around and bagging on each other for whatever we can think of.   It’s nice but also a bit strange. Even to me. Back when it was only Soldat and I, these hallways were silent as ever. It was a different time. This whole thing is recent since it was only in the early nineties that the other soldiers were created. Then their nurses were assigned and even then, we were acutely uncomfortable around each other. But I’m happy with the way things are now.   As we split off into our rooms, the hallway goes quiet again and it’s time for winding down. I get called to the side by an official. I could laugh at how obviously uncomfortable he is down here. He should be in an office upstairs, getting ready to go home. There’s a good reason why the higher-ups don’t come down here anymore. He hands me a file to prepare for the mission tomorrow. I accept it and watch him walk back to the elevator.   I realise Soldat has gone back to the room without me. As I walk back, I think about how strange it is that all twelve of us are out right now. We’re only taken out of cryo for missions. Ira and Michael and their soldiers completed missions the night before but spent the day training anyways. I presume the other three are going on assignments tomorrow since all of us were released from cryo at the same time this morning.

Part 2

Alt-talia Compilation: Bloody

Greetings, everyone. It seems Halloween has ended already... but the event isn’t over yet!

So this is another fic for hetaween; or rather, another compilation! This is for 10/27: Bloody. Now, I thought I could skip that day, because I thought it had to be about Halloween specifically.   But it turns out that wasn’t the case. So I’m going to release some here. I was thinking releasing a Hetalia Emblem fic for this prompt… but man there were so many ideas for this one. These aren’t the only ones, even. I’m just posting this now so that I can get it out while I can, with more to be added in reblogs. If I can, I’ll try to do the HE one though.

Since the first story ended up being way longer than expected, I decided to put it at the end, with the shortest fic, a scene I’ve had an idea for a long while that could be considered a companion piece to “Past The Finest Hour” in a way, at the beginning, kind of like animated shorts before an animated movie. There’s also a deleted scene that is actually an alternate version of the main feature, but I couldn’t follow up on it. I might post something using the same basic idea for “Nightmare”, though.

Also, once again, I must reiterate that Alt-talia is generally a more morally grey, dark AU. Also at least a few popular relationship dynamics in canon are absolutely shattered here, so keep that in mind. And the main story references a certain... infamous historical incident. It doesn’t feature it, it just references it, but I warned you. And these will all be referencing some kind of violent incident or time period in history. I just hope I gave them the respect they deserve. And since I can’t think of any era cues, I’ll just state upfront that said fic one takes place in the 60s, after the 1963 Élysée Treaty specifically; eventually, I’ve managed to narrow it down to not long after said treaty, probably 1963 - 1965. Also, I tried making the characters speak in an accent, but since they have border languages that are similar, they’re speaking that here instead. Also accents might cause Narm.

Note: I use a word that is often classified as a slur here. However, I feel that it’s appropriate to the era.

So, without further ado...

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(Also… people who read my fics, please reblog? I’ve spent so much time on them, I want more people to see them.)

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Keep Calm

The Battle of Britain had been raging for days; and Canada was growing worried.

The bombing had just begun and it was bad; quite bad. He had finished ushering another contingent of civilians into bunkers and tunnels, following the signs that now covered the city, hopefully safe from the fire and fury that rained upon what used to be their homes.

“Ah, Canada-“

And there his father was.

His head, a good part of of his face, and neck covered in blood.

Matthew just barely held back a scream.

“Father, your head is covered in blood, can you not see that?! Please take it easy!”

“Ah, this?” He was terribly serene, but that was punctuated with a cough.

“Terribly irritating, I must say-“ more hacking coughs “-Jerry, that nuisance. The blood is stinging my eyes-“

And with a painful-sounding cough, he coughed blood.

Canada’s face paled as it stained his uniform.

“GOOD GOD! ...Sorry at the outburst, but how can you call that ‘terribly irritating’?!”

The Blitz had indeed been affecting him; however, his face, as usual, was calm, as if he had a somewhat annoying cold.

More bombs fell, and again he coughed red, making Canada flinch.

He had never seen his father this hurt; the cliffs of Dover had protected him since the time of the Norman Conquest, and he probably hadn’t experienced this much damage, especially in his capital city, in that long a time.

But yet…

“A mere few square kilometers destroyed, is all…”

“MERE?!”

“We are nations, Canada. And can you not shout? I’m quite fine, thank you.”

He took off his scarf, compressing his wound. 

“I shall get back in the air in two hours now. You need to take flight soon too, lad. Chop-chop.”

Matthew, the personification of the Dominion of Canada, sighed loudly.  

“I’m not a ‘lad’ anymore father.”

His father chuckled.

“You are finally growing up, Canada.”

Even after all these centuries, his father’s ability to seemingly be unfettered by anything always never ceased to surprise him.

“I could use an ale now, however.”

“Father! Please!”

As he had been outside, guiding the citizens to their bunkers, many had been just like him.

Maybe, the best way to spite the enemy was this after all; to show that you wouldn’t be affected by their attempts, that no matter what, they would always remain as they always had been.

After all, his father hadn’t become the largest empire the world had ever seen for no reason.

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Unbreakable

Byelorussia bled.

With every Nazi her ragtag group of partisans killed, intentionally or not, her flesh tore and burned, and her mouth tasted of choking, suffocating liquid iron.

If she were human, she would have probably died from pain alone long ago.

She was able to cover most of them by now before the others noticed, and it helped that her old, worn uniform was becoming more and more loose-fitting as her emaciated body grew thinner by the day. But the others surely knew something was wrong.  Her headscarf had become torn from use as bandages, and she couldn’t afford to use much of their already limited resources.

Unbeknownst to them, some of that blood belonged to their families, friends, and neighbors.

She knew what they were trying to do. Many of the partisans urged her to take a rest, at the very least; but her usefulness to the group never faded, much to their confusion. But her nation status, unbeknownst to them, gave her the ability to make them easily dismiss strange idiosyncrasies of her existence.

However, she was only even able to walk by sheer force of will. They had started changing their tactics; less Nazis killed, in favor of other methods of sabotage, made the massacres less frequent. Her swamps and forests slowed them down already, and she gained great satisfaction in knowing the anguish and annoyance she caused Germany and his allies. Though occasionally she pitied the clearly inadequately equipped ones, sometimes barely better than they were; usually Italians. 

Germany’s leaders had apparently told him she was more harmless than her siblings, easily subjugated; a worthy slave. Judging by their obsession with furthering their “Aryan Race”, and being a rare female nation, she sometimes shivered at the implication of that; they already treated her as less than human when they caught her and sent her to work, though so far they hadn’t done anything of that sort to her... yet. The fact that they took infants they deemed “Aryan” enough was even stronger evidence to it. But by now, they surely knew she was more than merely Lithuania’s wife waiting for his return from battle at home, cooking and praying for him, even all those centuries ago. She did not know exactly why, but she had to survive. She would not die here.

She was a nation after all. Or at least, she believed she was. 

She couldn’t be sure about her future; by the time the war was over, it was almost guaranteed she would once again be taken into the Soviet Union, an easy picking, too weak to fight back, into the strangling clutches of Stalin. Even now, most of the partisan groups she had found herself in were Red Army detachments, and as much as she hated admitting it, without them she would be almost completely at the Reich’s mercy by now, constantly under his jackboot. Or worse.

However, that didn’t matter now. All that mattered was getting through today. And then, the war. And she was going to see the end of it, even if it meant dragging herself there.

She looked over their supply; due to lack of resources, Petrol Bombs - or Molotov Cocktails, as Finland, their inventor, spitefully called them - had proved to be a boon to them.

Soon, an important convoy would be passing through; that would be their chance to strike.

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Now, for the main feature...

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An Uneasy Forgiveness

Blood.

West Germany’s hands dripped with red.

His lungs felt like they were on fire from the hyperventilation, his heart raced, his vision blurred.

Now, he scrubbed his hands under the cold water, raising the intensity and rubbing the soap onto his hand again, the water glugging into the basin.

“Verdammt, verdammt, verdammt!”

Tears pricked his eyes as the man continued to try in vain to get the dreadful liquid off his hands.

Simple tears became sobs as he rubbed his hands raw.

On his hands was the blood of every Jew, every Pole, every Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, every Gypsy, every homosexual, every so-called “traitor”, everyone else he had determined as “less than human” he had destroyed the lives of.

“Verdammt, Verdammt, VERDAMMT!”

But yet, it wasn’t something he could wash away.

“Hé! What are you doing this early, I can hear you all the way from-“

Germany didn’t notice that the other occupant of this place had woken up and spotted him, until in the mirror, he saw him.

He froze, his red, puffy eyes meeting with the other nation’s.

France.

Germany’s eyes widened, unable to move, hyperventilating, shaking like a leaf, as he attempted to speak, but all that his throat produced were pathetic whines.

He felt his cold stare on him.

“What are you doing?”

“Frankreich... the blood, it won’t...”

His voice cracked, but he didn’t care.

But he didn’t notice the concern growing across France’s face, despite himself. He saw no blood; though he wouldn’t have been surprised if they indeed started bleeding from how frighteningly red and chapped they had become.

“It won’t...”

And he saw so much... vulnerability in the young man’s swollen eyes, his tear stained face, his disheveled hair, his youth making itself painfully apparent.

“Blood?! I don’t see any blood! What’s your deal, brat?”

“Frankreich... please...”

Germany felt the water shut off.

“Stop.”

“But...”

His normally deep voice sounded so meek and frail. Despite him being slightly taller than him, the younger man might as well have become a child again in front of him. No... if this were Germany as a child, he would have probably reveled in making the little hellspawn cry harder. At the time at least.

He avoided France’s gaze, afraid to even look him in the eye.

“I... I’m sorry for waking you. I...I’m s-sorry that you had to stay with me... I... I know you hate me... I know I can’t just sign away what I’ve done to you...”

Germany knew that France wasn’t here because he enjoyed his company. He had made a point and show out of demanding he get a separate bedroom. He knew full well that even within the ECSC, everyone only cooperated with him because they were even more tired of war more than they hated him. Belgium was the only one who reached out to him; he didn’t know why, after what he had done to her in both wars, but it was most likely just realpolitik. He knew, under her meek demeanor, she most likely still despised him. The rest, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy, and yes, France, all of them, made no such gestures. He felt it every time they met; how Luxembourg “accidentally” blew smoke in his face, how the Netherlands spat at him as he spoke if he didn’t outright berate him, how Italy refused to look at him as he toiled on the assembly lines.

And how when they shook hands that fateful day, where they officially buried the hatchet, France’s arm seemed oh so rigid, his smile forced.

Of course they did.

After all, it was their blood on his hands too.

He crumpled to his knees, sobbing. His younger self would have probably been disgusted at how he looked now, on his knees at the feet of his former archenemy. But that didn’t matter anymore. His pride didn’t matter anymore.

France was speechless.

It was so very bizarre. Not only was this type of behavior almost unthinkable for a nation, especially for such a man as Germany, but not long ago, France would have been euphoric to witness the sight of his most hated rival pitifully crumpled on the ground in front of him, vulnerable, broken, pathetic. From the day this brat was born, he had resented him. Him and his emotionally stunted, cold-hearted, warmongering father both. His very birth had been possible because of him being humiliated, his capital starved and besieged. He would have probably kicked him in the gut and laughed, spat at him, or at least taunted him.

And to be sure, he still felt some of that.

But, like when he met him in Berlin after he surrendered, another emotion gnawed at him from inside.

Pity.

Then, sympathy.

This wasn’t the genocidal, wrathful, goose-stepping Germany who had proclaimed his people superior above all else. It was the starving, weak, scared Germany he, America, and England had delivered bread to in that Airlift over a decade ago.

He wasn’t his father. He wasn’t Prussia.

And he had come here for a reason. He might as well do what he came here for.

“Get up.”

Germany, still quivering, looked up at him.

France made his way to the door of the bathroom.

“I said, get up. I thought you were good at taking orders? Or are you trying to be an annoying brat?”

He might as well try. It wasn’t like he wasn’t guilty of anything anyway.

And after some hesitation, Germany followed.

——-

Germany laid on his bed, letting the soft pillows absorb his tears. He had calmed down somewhat, or at least to the point where he could speak coherently.

“Mind if I borrow your smokes and lighter?”

No reply.

“Then. I might as well.”

On the nightstand was a pack of HBs. They were no Gauloises, but they would have to do. 

He took out a cigarette as the younger nation began to speak again.

“I didn’t want to believe it at first. I think my mind repressed it. But... I can’t run from the truth anymore. I just don’t know what to do. What... what can even be done after something so terrible? That awful man manipulated me. But... ultimately, I fell for his words. I was naïve. We all were. Ultimately, it was our fault...”

France, his back leaning lazily against the bedframe, lit a cigarette. 

Germany squeezed the sheets in his fists.

“You hate me, don’t you?”

France took a puff; he grumbled a bit about the weak taste and aroma. A few moments passed as the smoke rose.

“Maybe.”

“...”

“But I signed that Friendship Treaty. We shook hands. We officially agreed that our past was behind us. I was sent here to spend a few days with you so we could learn to get along, and I agreed to it. I could’ve followed President De Gaulle’s orders - he’s a good man, that De Gaulle - but for once, I didn’t. I might as well try to start doing what I’m supposed to.”

Germany looked at him, his cornflower blue eyes still wet, but no longer leaking new tears. He was, once again, silent.

“...Besides.”

He took another puff, the smoke dissipating in the air.

The prisoner laid at his feet, cursing him out in his Arabic dialect on the floor of the dark, cold cell, bloody coughs staining his combat boots between pained shouts, hatred-soaked shouts that Allah would damn him to hell.

He clenched his eyes and rammed his boot into the colony’s stomach again. 

“...The truth is, I have to deal with you, no matter what. You’re my neighbor. And we’re nations. We stick together when it’s best for our interests, and we fight when it’s best for our interests. Pretty sure you know this well; your father knew this better than anyone else. And now, trying to be your ally is probably in my best interest, though not so sure about ‘friend’. But who knows. And we want it to stay that way. Might as well try not to fight it.”

He put the cigarette out, the cigarette making a quiet “pssshhh...” sound as it was pressed against the ashtray.

“I’ll try to forgive you. Can’t guarantee for the others though. Though I don’t think I’m the most important one you should be apologizing to for your latest fuck up. I wouldn’t be surprised if Israel and Poland never completely forgive you. Maybe not even in a thousand years. But know that... I’ll at least try to start over. We need to go about this together, whether I like it or not. Might as well try to help show you a different life than what daddy Preußen taught you.”

Germany’s voice hitched again. It was clear he hadn’t made his mind up about his father yet. Understandable. And France wasn’t one to talk about parenting either.

“Thank you... really...”

Now it was France’s turn to remain quiet, as he let the younger one speak.

“When I was little, I remember vater told me that my future and survival wouldn’t be decided by speeches and majority decisions, but by iron and blood. He was quoting Chancellor Bismarck, I believe. Hopefully... I won’t need that advice anymore, from now on.”

“I see, you’re pretty good at this too.”

France lit up another cigarette.

“But if you do anything silly again, remember I’m the one with the nuke.”

“Jawo... Ja.”

“Good. We could go for a smoke later. You probably need one. But I’ll be going back to bed-“

“Don’t leave. Please.”

The older man sighed.

“Fine, you damn brat.”

Their eyes met.

“...Are we friends?”

“...Hopefully. Now, stop acting like that. It’s jarring. You need rest.”

A pause.

“…But if you need a smoke now, I’ll light it for you.”

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Deleted scene

The metallic, gruesome stench of blood surrounded Germany.

Nothing, nothing but darkness and blood. He gasped for air, his feet kicking in the thick, vile liquid searching for a floor that wasn’t there.

Eventually, the blood became hotter and hotter, first merely a singing heat, then searing, blistering, until the unbearable, tortuous heat pierced its way to his bones, boiling his flesh, only his struggles to keep his head above the surface keeping him from screaming in agony.

“Hilfe! Hilfe!”

He managed to choke out, before the scalding liquid spilled into his lungs.

Finally, with that, he sunk.

Deeper and deeper, he sank, the agonizing pain never stopping.

As he sank, he thought he saw many shadows, of all sexes, ages, and sizes, staring at him solemnly, quietly.

Among them, he thought he saw the rest of the ECSC, Russia and Poland, watching his descent with what must have been contempt.

It was then everything became cold as death.

————-

 (Explanation: the deleted scene was a reference to Dante’s Inferno; according to Dante, in the 7th circle of Hell is the realm of the violent, where souls are immersed in a boiling river of blood. However, it was maybe a bit odd I was using an Italian story for Germany)

Characterization notes: England is the epitome of Stiff Upper Lip in at least this time period in Alt-Talia; he isn’t quite a tsundere, to say the least. He’d be classified more as a kuudere perhaps, but not quite due to the whole British politeness thing.

Belarus is a big one; as readers who’ve read my other fic know, I write Belarus quite different than from canon. She’s probably one of the most human-like, in that her wish is to live a peaceful existence, not power or prestige, and unlike in canon she comes off more as a victim of circumstance than an instigator. While other nations would be motivated by a lot of nationalism, here she just wants to survive first and foremost. She’s generally quiet, even well-mannered, and excluding the Jews and Roma was hurt the most in WWII in terms of proportion of population; estimates of Belarusian deaths go as high as a quarter of the population, and including deportations and displacement the number can go as high as half (!). I like writing her because she just comes across as a woman with a tough life who just gets the crap beaten out of her for no fault of her own except geography. But when driven into a corner even she will be willing to bite back, if just for her people. 

Lies and Censorship, a Second Pandemic On April 6, 2020, the University of Manchester published a paper titled COVID-19 Disinformation: Two Short Reports on the Russian Dimension. That paper focused on highly funded disinformation programs, some funded by the EU and/or UK governments seemingly tasked with censoring or crushing media that strayed from the official “party line.” “The EU’s main task force for fighting Russian disinformation is in danger of becoming a source for disinformation itself, and so of skewing policy decisions in the EU and the UK, as well as distorting public discourse throughout Europe. Based on EU-sponsored counter-disinformation analysis in relation to COVID-19, our report explains what is happening and why. It does not dispute the need to track disinformation campaigns. However, it argues that this work has to be done carefully, and differently. Earlier experiences point to a more reliable approach, the consequences of not adopting which are highly counterproductive.” The report then cites how five stories were “cherry picked” from the Russian media and distorted though altering content and taking statements out of context. Thus, the highly funded “truth tellers” of “EU vs Disinfo” haven proven themselves to be a bastion of fake news. Behind them is an organization known as the East Stratcom Task Force, made up largely of Cold War leftovers, which is now directing efforts to silence free reporting on not just COVID-19 but the efforts by the ICC (International Criminal Court at The Hague) and varying UN groups to call the US, Israel, Britain and others to count for supporting terrorists in Syria and Iraq and in the false flag gas attacks that tie directly to the White Helmets. Let us remember that it was James Le Mesurier of MI-6 fame who founded the White Helmets. In April 2018 Russia brought 40 White Helmet “volunteers” to The Hague to testify about their role in faking gas attacks in Syria. The ICC allowed 15 chosen randomly to testify. Their testimony proved, beyond question, testimony confirmed by independent eyewitnesses, that Western intelligence agencies control not only the White Helmets but ISIS and al-Qaeda (banned in Russia) as well and closely coordinate their efforts with corporate media outlets as part of a massive program of disinformation and censorship. If the White Helmets, with 100% government funding, can be an NGO (non-governmental organization) what do we call ISIS or al Qaeda? (banned in Russia) The current issue is killing stories that tie NATO funded biological research facilities that study SARS COV related bat viruses to the 2020 Pandemic. As the US has repeatedly claimed and then denied that COVID 19 comes from a biolab, stories from covertly funded organizations cited for disinformation may well indicate something to hide. However, the “ground zero” for disinformation and censorship will, perhaps, always be the Syrian gas attacks and the coverup of the subsequent OPCW credibility issue. Other outlets claiming to be free or alternative press, such as The Intercept, fabulously funded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, join the effort as well. From a 2018 Intercept story by Jeff Mackey literally strewn with nonsense: “OVER THE OBJECTIONS of chemical weapons inspectors, who are still at work in Syria trying to determine if gas was used to kill dozens of civilians in the former rebel stronghold of Douma on April 7, Russia flew 17 Syrians from the war zone to The Hague, Netherlands, on Thursday, where they all testified that they had seen no sign of a chemical attack. The Syrians were chosen because they had been seen in video that was recorded by an opposition activist in the immediate aftermath of the attack. The activist’s footage showed what looked like frantic efforts in the town’s hospital to treat survivors for possible exposure to a chemical agent, by dousing them with water and helping them to breathe. Even though no one claimed that the hospital had been attacked with chemical weapons, Russia has made undermining the credibility of that video the centerpiece of its effort to prove that no chemicals were used in the Syrian government’s final bombardment of the town, which passed out of rebel hands the following day. The group it brought to the Netherlands included several medical workers seen in the footage and one patient, 11-year-old Hassan Diab, who has been described by Russian officials as the star witness in support of its case that the entire incident was a hoax, staged by volunteer rescue workers to provoke Western military intervention against Russia’s ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.” The Intercept failed, however, to report that OPCW whistleblowers debunked their version of the story which, as easily noted, includes a strange lie regarding a hospital attack that seems to only exist in the Mackay narrative. Yes, it was claimed a hospital was attacked, as the witnesses outlined, but it was attacked by heavily armed White Helmet “volunteers.” The testimony stated that fake rescue workers forced both hospital workers and civilian “victims” to act out a false flag terror attack on camera. There was also testimony that preparations went on for days in advance of the alleged Syrian gas attack, setting up props including smoke machines and bringing in media from carefully selected disinformation platforms. What the Intercept fails is this; without their disinformation story, there would be no report whatsoever of the ICC hearings as they had been totally censored from all US and European media by the all-powerful East Stratcom Task Force with the exception of the poorly contrived Intercept piece which inadvertently backfired and supports Russia’s assertions. The reason we choose The Intercept is that this has long been cited as a liberal platform highly critical of Trump policies, one positioned as a leader of alternative media, until, it seems, it is needed to launder disinformation on behalf of the Deep State. It will probably be called The Pandemic of 2020. Worse still, pandemics may be numbered like wars though, thus far, our count as stopped at 2, though it seems that one will smolder on for a century. History is to be our teacher but how can we learn if reality, fake history, fake news and disinformation, define how posterity will view our times? A massive effort by the EU is being made to silence any media source that doesn’t stick with the narratives released by Five Eyes intelligence agencies as part of their “cover and deception” efforts. Simply put, the wars which began on 9/11, perhaps even those which had the US bombing Serbia as well, were totally fabricated. Those of us who work in the defense and intelligence arena know quite well that millions from the US and, in particular, Germany, were spent organizing Islamic militias in Bosnia, whose coordinated efforts with Croatian separatists, also NATO trained and supplied, were ethnically cleansing the former Yugoslavia of Christians likely to be aligned, religiously at least, with Moscow. I had the opportunity to go over the NATO effort there a few years ago with the commander of the UN peacekeeping forces, General Sir Michael Rose and General Sir Jeremy Mackenzie, then Deputy chief of NATO, while on an outing of sorts. What can be said of those discussions is that efforts had far less to do with peacekeeping and far more with exploiting a power vacuum in Russia. The end result of NATO efforts has left the region overrun with Kosovan and Albanian criminal elements and has seeded al Qaeda into the heart of Europe, a story still being suppressed. To that we now add the MEK, the CIA controlled terrorist group now camping out in Albania. From Counterpunch: “MEK is a terrorist cult that resides in Albania, and which struggles to overthrow the government of a country that has done nothing wrong against Albania. As a result, the majority of the Albanians have no sympathy for this organization whose job is to wage war and terrorism against a foreign country. What MEK does is criminal and punishable according to the Albanian Penal Code and the Constitution of Albania. MEK was brought to Albania by deception. Albanian politicians like Pandeli Majko, Fatmir Mediu, Sali Berisha etc., asked the Americans to host them in Albania without asking the Albanian people first. This is like as if German politicians were to take into Germany the ISIS army and command, and host them in their country without asking their citizens first. The first members of MEK came to Albania in 2013. However, the bulk of them were brought in 2016, when the then US Secretary of State John Kerry announced their massive landing in Tirana. The coming of MEK created big fears in the country where many media, security analysts, journalists and the public opinion condemned the deception through which MEK was brought. From 2016 to 2018 the media in Albania has written and produced many debates against the MEK and ISIS fighters. Even the office responsible for fighting extremism classified them as an extremist organization in January 2018. The weird nature of MEK which operates as a messianic jihadi cult, whose members are mujahedeens, live isolated from the world, refuse civilian life and make continuous calls for jihad against Iran, and create fear among the peace-loving Albanians in the same way ISIS does for many people in the world. For this reason, in the past years many journalists and activists have criticized the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama by blaming it for turning Albania into a safe haven for terrorists.” The MEK issue is a hot one in that this CIA funded organization, once listed by the US as terrorist until they hired Trump insider Rudy Giuliani to represent them, is responsible for wide mischief both in Europe and across the Middle East. Their ties to Giuliani have inserted them into Ukrainian politics and efforts to organize terror attacks against Russian citizens in Crimea, as well as their continuing terror attacks inside Iran. Articles outlining this relationship have been removed from the website of the University of Maryland and even from The Intercept itself, all leaving behind “404 Page Not Found” traces only. This is the real job of the East Stratcom Task Force and its partnership with Google and Facebook, to make sure that any evidence of an unapproved reality is either delisted or scrubbed from servers. Conclusion In 1990, the Western media ran reports that Iraqi troops operating in Kuwait had murdered babies in incubators. From the Christian Science Monitor, September 6, 2002, nearly a year after 9/11, written while the US was in a frenzy of mass murder and carpet bombing across the Middle East in response to the 9/11 attacks that are still surrounded by so much censorship and controversy: “More than 10 years later, I can still recall my brother Sean’s face. It was bright red. Furious. Not one given to fits of temper, Sean was in an uproar. He was a father, and he had just heard that Iraqi soldiers had taken scores of babies out of incubators in Kuwait City and left them to die. The Iraqis had shipped the incubators back to Baghdad. A pacifist by nature, my brother was not in a peaceful mood that day. ‘We’ve got to go and get Saddam Hussein. Now,’ he said passionately. I completely understood his feelings. Although I had no family of my own then, who could countenance such brutality? The news of the slaughter had come at a key moment in the deliberations about whether the US would invade Iraq. Those who watched the non-stop debates on TV saw that many of those who had previously wavered on the issue had been turned into warriors by this shocking incident. Too bad it never happened. The babies in the incubator story is a classic example of how easy it is for the public and legislators to be mislead during moments of high tension. It’s also a vivid example of how the media can be manipulated if we do not keep our guards up. The invented story eventually broke apart and was exposed. (I first saw it reported in December of 1992 on CBC-TV’s Fifth Estate Canada’s “60 Minutes” in a program called “Selling the War.” The show later won an international Emmy.) But it’s been 10 years since it happened, and we again find ourselves facing dramatic decisions about war. It is instructive to look back at what happened, in order that we do not find ourselves deceived again, by either side in the issue.” Funny thing, you see, it’s always about selling a war, be it staging gas attacks or, as in Syria of May 2020, censoring reports of US troops burning Syria’s wheat harvest in order to engineer a famine. (Why else would someone burn crops?) How many examples could we come up with? Maidan Square and the sniper teams trained at NATO facilities in Poland? The issue here is war, a war on truth, a war fought though attacks on media, through control of media but mostly through disinformation. What is also clear is that efforts to portray, in this case, criticism of recognized terror organizations as “disinformation” is, in fact, material support of terrorism on behalf of governments whose public policy is opposition to those same groups.