First Stanza: [Action/Written]

[burns_so_brightly]

[The gentleman walking out of Community Building 1 does not live there, and in fact didn’t even walk in there in the first place. He’s dressed in a suit, tie, and trench coat and is tossing a fedora between his hands. Julian Bell walks through Luceti with a smile, as if this is nothing more than an exceptionally lucky day. He’s keen to explore and peers into every shop, sometimes actually going inside. The library holds his fascination for some time, and he’s delighted to find his own published books of poetry there (even if he’d admit it’s a faintly narcissistic pleasure).

He eventually sits down at the tea shop to read, looking for all the world like this is a vacation day and not the day after his death. That part, he’ll address once this actually sinks in.

At night, he’s at Cloud Nine, enjoying a Scotch on the rocks and a cigarette and listening to the music. For a crappy oppressed town, this place is doing very well!

Eventually, he works past an unusual (for him) nervousness and writes over the journals.]

Am I allowed to take any empty flat, or is that supposed to be assigned?

-Julian Bell

Comments

[written]

[winksandnods]

[The name and the handwriting...

It isn't possible, but it's hard to say that when it's staring him in the face. His Journal's camera has long since had ink applied to it and been taped over. Just in case. He likes his privacy, and he doesn't trust something like this.

He writes, taking pains to conceal familiar slants of the letters and such.]

We've all been assuming they're free to take.

[written]

[burns_so_brightly]

[Oh, his first journal contact. This thing does work! Intriguing and very clever, like a hand-held telegraph.]

Thank you, sir or madam. I'll have a look around and see which one I like, then.

[written]

[winksandnods]

Sir.

[Damn.

And, of course, Guy has gone out. Without his journal. There's no way to be sure. No way to verify that this isn't... something. He doesn't even know all the possibilities of what it could be.

Even "really happening" could be very, very bad.]

They're all very much alike when occupied, to my understanding.

[written]

[burns_so_brightly]

[If this were voice, you'd hear a familiar laugh, Anthony.]

They are unless you're looking for a halfway good location. Something closeish to the library and the club and the tea shop, or whatever your places of inspiration happen to be. On a high floor, looking out at the woods. You get the idea.

Action

[thelittlemacthatcould]

It is in the midst of his routine jog around town that Mac lifts his head and just so happens to catch a glimpse of a smartly-dressed man from the corner of his eye - and in an instant, his brain leaps to the conclusion that it's likely to be good old Guy Burgess before he has even gotten a good look. Slowing slightly, he offers a mild, goodnatured "Hey, Mr.Gu- -" in greeting while turning his head and- - oh.

Crap.

Action

[burns_so_brightly]

The problem with that: Julian is a good five or six inches taller than Guy. But he does look up at the address, notice the mistake, look over his shoulder, and quickly assume the greeting was meant for someone behind him. Looking slightly sheepish in the way people do when they respond to someone who wasn't talking to them, he keeps walking.

Action

[thelittlemacthatcould]

The Bronxite feels awkward enough that he just has to say something. He stops entirely and twists around, looking apologetic and slightly flushed. "M'sorry. Heh, I thought you was a friend a' mine 'cause, he, uh, kinda dresses like you." A weak chuckle. "Ain't really payin' attention when I run, y'know? Guess m'brain was jus' kinda somewhere else. Sorry."

Action

[burns_so_brightly]

A polite nod. The only thing more awkward than what just happened is people trying to talk to you about it afterward, so Julian raises a hand. "No trouble, sir. Good day."

[ action ]

[herotypical]

[ a short blonde breezes into the tea shop. confident -- at least superficially so. though she doesn't seem to know what she wants. so she stands back and surveys the selection and stands back a little more.

eventually she stands back so much until she bumps into a stranger's chair. ] O-oh. Jeez. Sorry. My bad.

[ action ]

[burns_so_brightly]

[Additional trouble: Julian was just bringing his tea to his lips when she bumped. Tea sloshes into his lap, and he is immediately on his feet.]

Oop!

[Napkin. NOW. He starts dabbing at the tea on his pants.]

It's no trouble at all, don't mind me.

[ action ]

[herotypical]

[ her light, continued apology tapers off as she turns around and surveys the actual damage she's caused. oh. oh jeez.

buffy clasps her palms over her mouth --- fingers nervously tapping the tip of her nose. wide, green eyes shot wider.

muffled: ] You're...you! You've gone and spilled tea on your you and...and it was hot, wasn't it? Oh God. Here. Let me.

[ she. reaches. for. the. napkin. ]

[ action ]

[burns_so_brightly]

Erm.

[So this is not at all awkward. But Julian reacts to awkwardness by laughing. Just...nervously and tentatively. Because there is a very gorgeous girl mopping tea off his lap with a napkin. It'd embarrass her to stop her, and he doesn't really mind too much? And hey, this will make a funny story later. They can tell it to their grandkids. Or something.

Wow she's pretty.]

[action]

[thatmadbastard]

[Guy had left House 32 sometime that afternoon, leaving his journal at home, as per usual. He rarely walked around with it, finding that if he was set on perusing the recent twaddle-speak of other citizens he'd need to be properly set for it. That usually meant being set at his desk in his room. Otherwise, the journal was less than carefully thrown into a trunk in a corner of his room. He didn't like the idea of accidental recordings since he'd heard of them and he doesn't like the idea of the Malnosso even after researching for them. It wasn't for them anyway. It was for him.

Regardless, it was better he didn't have his journal.

It's a rather mundane Monday that brings Guy to the club. Sometimes he frequents Good Spirits because he's keen on the conversations he has with Buffy, but tonight he fancies something a bit more... well, a bit more says it nicely.

It isn't during the initial stroll in but when he's finding a place to sit down that Guy spots something too familiar. He'd sworn he'd seen that figure in two blazing fires, that in the wavering lick of flames there'd been a flash of that brightness that made up Julian Bell.

There's a ghost in front of him and suddenly Guy's jaw is slack, cigarette hanging on his bottom lip in desperate need of a flicking, ash clinging to the paper as it smokes without him. A bonfire ago, Guy had all the time and reflection in the world and the mindset to wonder what it is he would say to the poet he loved. Still loves. He finds himself as utterly crushed and silent as he was then, shoulders rounding as his frame sinks.

He hadn't drank that much, or at least he can't recall it. He doesn't know the last time he's eaten anything, but he also doesn't bloody know how that's important when he's hallucinating the man he loves into full form in front of him.

Every single line is right. The smaller tendrils of hair. His posture in the chair of the club. The way he holds his scotch. Julian Bell is fucking perfect in front of him, like a photograph in colour. Except there are no ripped edges, and this isn't Cambridge.

How cruel, though, to see Julian with wings, bespeckled like the print of morning news, like volumes of poetry and feathered gently because only heaven could cradle such a soul.

All the moments of madness Guy has ever felt creep on his mind have given warning. Utter madness falls on the men that don't know they're mad. Guy Burgess has moments of madness, but with a certain brilliance, he has always controlled them. It dawns on him--the moment his eyes begin to water and he feels every inch of clothing on his skin and he can't tear away from that face--that he has to be completely fucking insane.

He never saw it coming.

His voice is quiet... breathy... weary and wary all at once.

He doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know anything but that little bit of Auden from bursting into flames.]

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day...

[action] 1/2

[burns_so_brightly]

Excuse me?

[It's a familiarish voice. Very familiar, but with the gravel in it, he can't immediately place it. Looking up from the journal, he glances over his shoulder at the speaker.]

[action]

[burns_so_brightly]

[And freezes. Dumb.

Looking more careworn and sporting his own pair of wings but still recognizable is the one and only Guy Burgess. Running into anyone familiar around here had been something Julian had never expected, but for it to be Guy of all people...

This was not likely to go well. Julian didn't like the way things ended between them, but neither did he blame himself for any part in it. Now, here they are, reunited in the most unlikely place possible, and despite his sadness at their parting Julian has absolutely nothing to say to this man.]

[action]

[thatmadbastard]

[Guy swallows at that look. It's the sort of shock he didn't expect from a ghastly accurate spectre. All the times he's seen Julian in his mind, he's been perhaps blissfully unaware that Guy looked on, the man who "changed" his politics and didn't believe in it all any more. It didn't matter that he stood for them secretly, that the past was buried but that such passions weren't dead. Julian had never known that Guy felt alive because he, all along, had wanted the same thing and found a way to fight for it. His fighting wasn't on the front lines, in an ambulance as Julian had been. He'd fought for these things differently, in games of cloak and dagger.

Still, never had he watched Julian look at him in such dreams. Yes, Julian had always remained lost, even in Guy's dreams. Lost to his own world. Lost to the world. Lost.

Now, he turns?

Guy suddenly remembers the cigarette and reaches over to the table he chose to ash it. His eyes never leave that face.]

You read Auden, didn't you?

[Hell of a thing to ask, with all that's hanging in the air around them both, with Guy's heart pumping away on his bloody sleeve.

He doesn't know what to ask.
He doesn't know how to ask a ghost.
He doesn't know.]

[action]

[theoniongirl]

It had been awhile since she'd replenished her stock of books, so that meant a trip to the library. She'd gathered a fair-sized stack to take back to House 7 and, for once, is more focused on the books on the shelf than the people around her.

[action]

[burns_so_brightly]

Julian has an armful himself--history, or at least Jilly's history, books about war (he was delighted to find one about the Spanish civil war), and a volume about teaching creative writing. Unfortunately, at one point, Jilly is in front of one of the books he wants, and after waiting politely for a time, he clears his throat.

"Excuse me."

[action]

[theoniongirl]

Glancing over her shoulder, she gives a bright smile when she realizes someone is there, deftly stepping aside. "Sorry! I didn't see you there."

[Written]

[shadedsunlight]

Flats and houses are free to take as long as no one is living there, or if someone is, that they don't mind a roommate. Everything else is also free.

[Written]

[burns_so_brightly]

I understood that! Thank you very much, Miss.

[Written]

[shadedsunlight]

You're welcome. Just arrived, I take it?

[relictusdeus]

[A certain redhead devil is now making something of a habit of prowling through the village in the evening, as if it is his playground. Improperly dressed for the weather (if one could consider it being dressed at all,) he walks smoothly and smugly in his heels, twirling his spear every so often as if in anticipation of driving it through the next man he sees. The fact that he has restrained himself from doing so is rather impressive.

He glances at every stranger coming his way - and Julian is yet another his gaze settles over. His fierce, white eyes are almost luminescent in the dark.

[burns_so_brightly]

[Julian was in a war. For a month, yes, but he was in one. He's not going near the guy waving a spear around in public. He'll find an alternate path to where he's going if he must.]

[relictusdeus]

[In Valachia, Isaac was accustomed to but the briefest of interactions with villagers, snarling a few words before gleefully driving the spear through their bodies and watching them squirm like insects. The angry defiance he was occasionally met with was nothing more than something for him to laugh at, to mock, to toy with. As keenly thrilling as those moments of explosive violence directed towards strangers could be, the excitement had a tendency to fizzle out too quickly, leaving him aching deeply for something lasting.

Something slightly more… meaningful and satisfying.

And so, he decides on an impulse that it won't do just to thrust his weapon at this arbitrarily-chosen victim and to end things here and now. No; Isaac would simply like to chat with him, to shake him to his core with a piercing look, to stop and revel in the smell of fear.

To learn a little bit about Julian, in other words.

Carefully sheathing his spear at his back, he approaches one deliberate step at a time, seeming as relaxed and cooly confident as ever.] Where are you heading in such a hurry...? [He asks lightly, regardless of Julian's pace. He holds out his arms, a faint smile playing his lips.] Home, I presume? Where it is warm and safe?