((Suggested for those that read Stoplight Crucifixion.))

There is a buzz in the streets. The news. 'The Second Coming of Christ', and they all pronounce it like the name of a movie. A mini-series. Well-acclaimed, award-winning, but no one remembers the plot.

Dionis doesn't like the water. There's nothing to be had in vast landscapes of empty space, no joy, no reflection in solitude. Dionis is not a god for introspection. He's here, waiting, for nothing in particular. Sober. The ache of it is strong down his arms and legs, but there is some joy in the breathless feeling of a full-made body without chemical stimuli.

Jesus. He's Jesus. The body, the nails - dirt and blood, still, though he's taken it through life and death. The others don't remember, the news crews won't repeat the footage - it's lost, they say, burnt out. A technical malfunction. Most are calling it an elaborate hoax, some blame government or secret organizations. EGO, for those that know of it. The CIA for those that don't. It's close enough to the truth, the real mystery not in the event but the aftermath.

The day is spoken like an admission of guilt by those that speak of it at all. This thing, this event, truth or not - there is no record of it, and the people are wary of insubstantial things. As they should be.

Di's legs dip deep in the water, not his own (having worn a body for so many years, one gets attached and used to the pigmentation), paler and ruddier. Freckles down each leg, his hips, curly strings of hair impairing the vision of such. He still radiates light - there is no escape from that, though with effort the vision is less sickly and more godly, a trick of the light rather than radiation sickness. The water heats in the sun and he feels droplets crawl across his skin, slick and temporary in the crooks of his arms.

To those inclined enough to see what he portrays, Dionis could be a vision of stained-glass theology, Jesus of Nazareth or a suitable replacement lounging naked along a shore, eyes cast vaguely at a bit of cloud obscuring the near-summer light. His retinas burn, and the ache is entrancing.

((What of those who did not peruse the entire thing? Still open for joining?))

((Absolutely. Hell, you don't have to have read any of it all.))

((Lovely.))

Ilario was fed up. He'd had enough, to the neckline and above, with this new concept of "learning" and "school" and "class". This was not class. This was most definitely a form of torture. Carefully structured and organized torture. He clasped a piece of paper in his hands, a note, but he couldn't read it.

It contained something to the effect of his neglect to follow the basic circculum of the classes he was enrolled in could potentially mean his expulsion from the courses at Keaton. He had not even registered, he recalled, that rather unpleasant fellow... Banks... or.. Barks.. or.. Balks... something of the sort had been directly responsible. Not his own fault.

He was barefoot and loose, in a sense, freed from the choking conditions of the City and the smothering confines of shoes and stockings. He dearly missed his hose and slippers, but for all he knew they might be vacuumed sealed in some museum. He tossed the paper aside and paid brief mind to the flutterings as it wafted away. Not very far. He began walking again.

Otherwise he wore a striped "rugby" (what was.. rugby?) style shirt and relatively baggy khaki pants. They dragged on the grass under his bare feet. Some kindly admirer had provided them, and in his fallen state of political confusion (the robbing of his family's name and prestige to be precise) he had been desperate.

This was how he found the other young man, his head tilting in curiosity. The grey eyes quickly began summing up the body without a trace of embarrassment. A few whisps of auburn hair falling across the concentrated gaze, framing everything he saw in a reddish-copper haze.

((My apologies for massive delay.))

Di isn't all there - in this body, these ribs, meticulously exact like a medical student's mold casting, he can't help but focus inward. Feeling the blood move inside him, fast and thin, the low ache of sleeping tendons pulled with every sway of a foot. As self-involved as he is, though, it would take more distraction than he can muster with this limited stimuli to miss the intrusion of the kid. 'Intrusion' is not a coherent or decisive thought, though if asked in honesty Dionis would agree with it.

"'lo," he says, without turning. The voice doesn't quite match the body, timbre a little low as if unaccustomed to the fit of vocal chords. Di watches the water intently, then throws a blade of grass where he was looking.

It balks in the wind, and flutters to stick to his shin.

Ilario was entirely captivated by the wafting blade a grass for a brief moment. The registering of a greeting shook him from his thoughts about the wind and made him re-focus on the sun bathing youth.

"Buongiorno, signore."

He replied smoothely and then appeared to undergo mental torture. He screwed his lips downward, rubbed his palms on his pants, and then forced out.

"Good.. morning.. "

In a broken, resisting tone. The loyalty toward his previous vernacular was a very persistent force. He ran his tongue across the gradually relaxing lips as he recovered from the strain of having to speak the series of grunts called speech.

Head tilts a little, forward and to the side. He smiles, or the body around him does, and he lets it for want of a better reaction. French always makes him think of guillotines and revolutions.

"Good morning."

The spacing between words is a little fast, stilted, like the kid's. He hadn't tried to talk since he shoved this thing back together. This body. It isn't working as well as he'd like, stodgy and slow without the lubrication of alcohol.

Another piece of grass, another throw. This one makes it a bit farther, the wind favouring it to carry it along into the water. Dionis watches it, quite intent, until it slips into a little crook of mud and stays.

Without turning, his hand raises - fingers a little curled, palm curved in itself, elbow straining with the angle. A slow wave, or some semblance thereof, which manages to pop the tendon of his wrist. He shakes it a little, returning it back to his side.

Ilario allowed himself another step forward.

"Dove sono?"

He continued speaking, sounding less checked now that he was not being rebuked. He eyes the wave and responds with a clipped bow of trained origins. Habit. So was what he said.

"Where... I am?"

He rectifies, mind playing over the tracks of familiar lessons. Where is the bathroom? Do you have an apple? My cat is black and white. "I" before "E" except after... He shook his head. The class was full of the City's foreign sullen. Nothing falling into his concern. He became riveted once more on the flying grass.

Slow, creeping smile weighted back by the feeling of newer, tighter tensions along his jaw and cheeks.

"The waterfall."

A flat gesture with his toe, likely obstructed from the kid's view by, say, a leg, at the surrounding area.

"It's open area. You're allowed to be here."

The last bit said in as comforting a tone as he can manage, which isn't greatly so. He can feel the individual nerves under his skin reacting to each blood platelet.

A hand out, again, same hand - a 'you're welcome to sit here' or 'here, have this hill and take it home with you as I'm not using it' gesture.

He smiled. Ilario smiled. They were friends. Right? Allowed. Nice.

He followed the gesturing hand and sunk onto the grass beside his comrade. A tiny puff of air, he sat harder than he meant. A smile broken over his face, lighting his grey eyes.

Friend. Friend. Friend.

He looked around and plucked at the sleeves of his shirt, dipping his chin so his cheeks were concealed by the copper curtain.

What to say. He furrowed his brow and then rubbed the tip of his tapered nose. What not to say by the same token.

"Have you.. pleasant day?"

Something like that. Yeah.

((So many apologies.))

Deep inhale as the kid sits - fresh grass, the feel of it itching along his sinuses - human-smell, skin. The stimuli's a little different, takes longer to interpret - Di doesn't notice the smile in its beginning, or the frustration. A spot on his knee itches, terribly, and he claws at it.

"Pleasant day?"

No condescension in the tone or repeat of words, just genuine consideration and the feel of his fingernails breaking through the top layers of skin - dead, dry, useless. Even with its novelty.

"I.. yes. Pleasant."

Eyes back to the sun - the dark bits had gone from his vision, and he misses them.

"And you?"

Ankle twitches in the water, feet wading a bit in the ripple.

"Meraviglioso."

Wonderful. And he smiles broadly through his hair; the wide and innocent smile of someone easily impressed and trusting, very friendly. He doesn't bother to correct his speech to English.

"I... do well."

Am well. They both had two letters. He didn't care. He moves closer to the other man. Longest conversation he has ever had. Now it's fading and he looks flighty. A pink tongue darts across his lips.

"Water... feel good? You come this spot many time?"

Now he sounds like he's coming on to him. He's still wearing that smile but it has receded some.