gouache
cold and planetary.
“Why would they have a baby out this late on a saturday night…” Shmuel rolled his eyes with his chin resting on the palm of his hands, “It’s just horrible parenting..” He rolled his eyes and let out a long sigh, still staring intensely at the group of women dressed in tacky gowns and feathered hats, with a pram the baby must’ve been resting in. It was freezing cold outside too, so putting a small child at risk of catching a cold felt reckless to him. “You’re acting like a brooding chicken again.” Daemen softly laughed to himself with a smirk, recounting everytime Shmuel would say something about wanting a baby. “You know you get this way…” The ebony haired male took a small sip of his black tea while he studied Shmuel sitting directly across from him. The brunette gave a sharp glare to Daemen, before he bashfully turned his head away from him. Together they both sat on the metal chairs outside a cafe’s small patio. The cafe had a busy stream of people coming in and out, before they trailed back into the bustling nightlife. “I told you I'd get a baby for you..” Daemen mentioned, listfully picking at the muffin on the small glass plate, “These women just leave them around all the time at the fire stations, ya know..” Daemen offered a chunk of the muffin up to Shmuel from in between his fingers.
“You’re annoying me.” Shmuel mumbled, as he reluctantly looked back to Daemen, and took the piece of blueberry muffin from his fingers. “Pretty sure if you took that baby from those ladies over there.. They wouldn’t give a rat's ass.” Daemen admitted, as he rested his back against the metal chair and placed his leg over his knee, watching Shmuel irritatingly eat the bite of muffin. “And then what? When the baby is older we just let it die without us?” Shmuel scoffed with his cheeks full after having shoved the rest of the piece of muffin in his mouth. Daemen just shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly, “We’ll figure it out once we arrive there.” He laughed softly to himself, but Shmuel ignored him. Shmuel pouted, sitting in silence while avoiding eye contact with Daemen, and stared straight ahead at the street.
Shmuel suddenly started to glance around him, clearly in search of something. “What?” Daemen asked with a raised brow, but Shmuel didn’t respond and continued to look in all different directions. “Where is Leon?” Shmuel uttered sharply, “He was just with us.” The brunette twisted his head around once more, but gave up upon getting no sight of him. “He’s feeding the street cats.” Daemen stated as he nursed the tea cup to his lip, “Remember he was the one who wanted food..” Daemen sighed heavily as he took another sip of his tea, “But the moment I looked away, he ran off with a half of the muffin to feed the cats.. But the girls and Jean got a hold of him.” Daemen recalled, annoyed that he spent his money on food Leon was just going to feed to the stray cats.
Daemen pulled away the plate with the rest of the muffin before Shmuel got ahold of another piece. He didn’t want Shmuel to be sick for the rest of the night from overeating too much human food, which he often did. “Let’s give the rest to the others.” Daemen stated, and started to place the muffin neatly away in its wrapping paper to keep it safe. Shmuel didn’t argue with him about taking it from him. “Wouldn’t you like to go shopping?” Daemen asked the brunette who was just vacantly gazing at the groups of people roaming on the streets. “We're only in the city tonight before we leave too.. god knows where.” Daemen exclaimed to Shmuel so he could hear him over the chatter of the people walking by, but still he remained silent.
“Come on.” Daemen carefully adjusted himself out from his seat and brushed the crumbs off his satin emerald green and black square patterned pants. Although it was below freezing, Daemen was ironically hot blooded, and rarely felt cold. He dressed down in just a double breasted velvet in a dark emerald green vest, and a matching velvet trench coat- with a cashmere grey scarf tucked into his vest. They both of them were going to be walking around tonight, so he wore his regular black leather oxfords.
“Ready?” Daemen asked, only for Shmuel to let out a sad sigh. Daemen came around to Shmuel’s side, pulled his chair out for him, and took him gently by the arm to stand him up. “I’m putting the rest of the muffin in your bag, I didn’t bring mine.” Daemen mentioned, just in case he wouldn’t be surprised if he found crumbs in his bag later. “Fine.” Shmuel replied and started to reach for his coat that was resting on the back of the chair, only for Daemen to lift it up into his hands. Daemen motioned for Shmuel to turn around, and slipped the brunette’s arms into the sleeves of the auburn and caramel colored fur coat.
“Are you warm enough in this?” Daemen asked, now shifting Shmuel back around to face him as he tenderly pulled the neck of the fur coat to cuddle his neck. “Yeah..” Shmuel pushed Daemen’s finicky hands away from, and adjusted his scarf himself. Shmuel quickly pulled the front of his matching tweed jacket from underneath his fur coat with a huff. Shmuel had a few amounts of clothes layered on, so having to put it all back into place was frustrating. “You’re touching me too much..” Shmuel whispered sharply, before he glanced around to see if anyone happened to be staring at them. Daemen gave out a breathy chuckle, feeling unbothered by the possibility of onlookers judging them. Shmuel dug out his black leather gloves out from the pockets of his beige brown tweed pants, but started to have a hard time putting them on due to how tightly fit they were. Daemen just slyly smirked, knowing without his help to put Shmuel’s gloves on he would struggle immensely. “Oi vey..” Daemen gruffed fondly, leaning on one of his legs, before he placed a hand onto his hips, watching Shmuel frustratingly try to pull his gloves on.
Finally, he managed to get them on after a minute of fighting with his gloves. Daemen sighed in relief with a soft laugh, looking affectionately at Shmuel and his messy head of hair. Shmuel took notice of this and smacked Daemen’s stomach with the back of his hand. “Ow!” “Come on..” Shmuel rolled his eyes, already quickly stepping off the cafe’s patio. “What? I can’t admire you?” Daemen exclaimed as he caught up to Shmuel just to grab him by the arm, “Am I not allowed to do that too?” “You’re really annoying me..” Shmuel grumbled, before he aggressively shoved Daemen’s hand off from his arm with an irritated look in his deep brown eyes. “Fine.. sassy.” Daemen yawned, he could already feel sleep burning in the back of his eyes. “Should we go catch up with them?” Daemen asked, he walked closely beside Shmuel to keep him from bumping into anyone as they started making their way through the crowds of people.
“I don’t care.” Shmuel sniffled, his nose already beginning to feel itchy from the chilly wind. “Watch out Shmuel..” Daemen grabbed Shmuel by the arm to keep him out of the way or from stepping onto the tails of dresses. “Too many people..” Shmuel groaned with another sniffle, and rubbed his nose with the back of his sleeve. Daemen hooked his arm around Shmuel’s waist discreetly from underneath his coat to keep ahold of him from knocking carelessly into anyone else. Shmuel didn’t react to Daemen getting a hold of him, instead kept on rubbing at his nose and not paying attention.
“Shmuel pick up your feet!” Daemen exclaimed as he lifted Shmuel up by the waist to keep him from falling forward. Shmuel started to drag his feet dramatically with a small smirk on his face, clearly very amused by Daemen’s valiant effort to keep him from fumbling. “What is up with you..” Daemen held Shmuel tightly from underneath his coat to hold him straight up, only for the brunette to start laughing under his breath. “I will hold you like a baby if you keep doing this, ya know..” Daemen grappled with Shmuel around the skirts of dresses, or the backs of their heels.
“You asked for this.” Daemen started to lift Shmuel up by his hips to pick him up, but Shmuel swiftly wiggled out of his grip, and quickly marched ahead of Daemen through the crowd- as if nothing had happened. Daemen felt a playful smirk beginning to pull onto his lips while watching the back of Shmuel’s fluffy head of hair aimlessly strolling off. Daemen shoved his hands back into his coat pockets, and walked a couple paces faster to catch up to him. From a long distance, Daemen could smell Leon’s cologne. Leon had a niche and specific scent to him that it was easy to tell him apart from everyone else in a crowd. If he was with the others, then he was the target to follow to find them again.
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Leon took a knee onto the cold concrete, making sure to be careful not to lose his balance and startle the cats. He delicately took apart three small halves of the chunk of the blueberry muffin in his large hand, making sure not to break any more pieces off. Once he took apart the muffin into its proper halves, he gently placed the pieces onto different sides of the concrete to allow each cat to have their own half. “I do not have much, so please share amongst yourselves.” Leon softly said as he slowly moved back to give the cats their space to feel comfortable enough to safely eat. From a distance, Leon intensely observed the three tiny cats start to creep over to the halves of the muffin. They look to be very young.. possibly kittens, he thought, but it was hard to tell due to how underweight they seemed to be based on their size alone. Leon turned his gaze away from the cats as to not make eye contact, hoping they would approach the food on their own now.
The cat’s became startled by the noises of a group outside the dark alleyway, and backed away from him and the food again. Leon patiently sat there, waiting for the tumult of people to finally pass by. He turned his attention back to the cats to see them much closer to the pieces of muffin, now standing only a few inches away from it. Leon watched intensely from the corner of his eye, it took a moment of just the hum of noises from the streets for the cat’s to begin to get close enough to sniff the food. The three of them went for one of the halves of the muffin together, which he expected, but didn’t mind it as long as they ate.
Once he saw the cat’s look down and started to nibble at the food, he turned his intense stare back to them now that they were distracted. Where is their mother?, he thought now deeply curious to know if their mother was close by.. or was with them at all. Now that the cats were in the moonlight, he could see they were different spots in shades of brown, orange, and white. He couldn’t smell mom anywhere, which he found upsetting to say the least seeing as the three cats were rather malnourished. They did look old enough to hunt for themselves, but he was still unsure of how true that theory was. Leon wanted to find out if he was right, but knew that he was going to be hustled to come back to the others once they found out where he was hiding.
He tried to recall if there were any other food vendors he had passed along the way before coming here, in hopes that he could run there and back with more food for the cats. Leon solemnly stared at the cat’s as they went about quickly scarfing down the pieces of muffin. Their short haired coat looked soft to the touch, and he wished to reach out to pet them, but knew it would just scare them away. Leon hadn’t been able to touch one of them in a while due to how skittish the cat’s would be whenever he would spot them while traveling.
Leon gently patted his pants pocket to check for any coins, but felt nothing. He then patted his coat pockets, and still found nothing. Leon sighed through his nose, frustrated that he would’ve left the room without any pence, and had to rely on the others for now. He noticed with all the fumbling he was doing in search of coins that it had startled cats, and they had retreated back into the darkness without having finished their food. He thought he was too much of a nuisance for the cat’s to relax with how big he was, and feared they thought he was too imposing because of this. “I’ll be back..” Leon whispered before he warily tried to get back onto his feet, careful not to scare the cat’s, but it was no use. He sighed sadly as he watched the cats promptly recede back into the darkness, knowing it was due to his carelessness once he stood up. Leon made a plan that he would seek out the others and ask to see if they had any pence they could spare so he could get something to “eat”.
He straightened himself up from his strained position on the concrete, and did his best to silently make his way out from the alleyway. Leon stepped out from the darkness and back into the lit up city street, filled with people strolling by making their own noises. He brushed both his hands together to wipe off the dust from his brown leather gloves, and then brushed off the dirt from his taupe wool trousers. Leon ran a tough hand through his hair to get it back into shape from it’s disheveled state after kneeling forward for a while. He didn’t want to look like he was doing something other than waiting for the others, so he straightened up his coat and tucked his tie back into his vest. From where he stood, he peered around in search of familiar faces, but couldn’t spot them out of the crowd.
This was the last place they must’ve seen him in, if he remembered correctly. He made a mental note not to stray too far from where they left him. Leon stuffed his hands into his coat pocket to remove a small silver arabesque engraved case, before he clicked the latch open to reveal a set of cigarettes. He took up one of the cigarettes from its holder and placed it in between his lips, shut the case, and shoved it right back into his pocket. Leon patted his back coat pocket in a small panic, unsure if he had put his lighter in there before walking out earlier. He sighed in relief once he felt the metal tin and yanked it out from his pocket.
Leon nonchalantly lit the cigarette from in between his lips, with the flame from the lighter drifting onto his thumb due to the wind, but did not feel it from the thick callus covering the bed of his thumb. He took a long drag from his cigarette, and deeply inhaled through his nose. Leon let out the smoke with the exhale, but made sure to lean his head away from the people walking by. He was sure he would be there for a while with how the others took their time, and he felt anxious that he couldn’t tend to the cats as soon as he wanted too. Leon wasn’t hard to spot because of his looming height compared to the average passersby, so he didn’t care to look out for them.
Leon could feel eyes intensely staring at him unapologetically for a moment before walking by. He hoped he didn’t look suspicious, or scary in any way to the people walking past him, considering he wasn’t in his group, he thought he stuck out like a sore thumb. Leon was perfectly fine being alone, but being alone in a large crowd was upsetting to him and made him rather anxious. He distracted himself, and wondered if a fabric store happened to be close by so he could pick up some leather for his books. That meant he would have to hustle the others for pence to buy it.. But he was running low, and they were only in the city for a night. Leon too another long drag from his cigarette, with the other hand ran his thumb across his wedding ring anxiously, hoping the others would find him soon.
“You’re annoying me.” Shmuel mumbled, as he reluctantly looked back to Daemen, and took the piece of blueberry muffin from his fingers. “Pretty sure if you took that baby from those ladies over there.. They wouldn’t give a rat's ass.” Daemen admitted, as he rested his back against the metal chair and placed his leg over his knee, watching Shmuel irritatingly eat the bite of muffin. “And then what? When the baby is older we just let it die without us?” Shmuel scoffed with his cheeks full after having shoved the rest of the piece of muffin in his mouth. Daemen just shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly, “We’ll figure it out once we arrive there.” He laughed softly to himself, but Shmuel ignored him. Shmuel pouted, sitting in silence while avoiding eye contact with Daemen, and stared straight ahead at the street.
Shmuel suddenly started to glance around him, clearly in search of something. “What?” Daemen asked with a raised brow, but Shmuel didn’t respond and continued to look in all different directions. “Where is Leon?” Shmuel uttered sharply, “He was just with us.” The brunette twisted his head around once more, but gave up upon getting no sight of him. “He’s feeding the street cats.” Daemen stated as he nursed the tea cup to his lip, “Remember he was the one who wanted food..” Daemen sighed heavily as he took another sip of his tea, “But the moment I looked away, he ran off with a half of the muffin to feed the cats.. But the girls and Jean got a hold of him.” Daemen recalled, annoyed that he spent his money on food Leon was just going to feed to the stray cats.
Daemen pulled away the plate with the rest of the muffin before Shmuel got ahold of another piece. He didn’t want Shmuel to be sick for the rest of the night from overeating too much human food, which he often did. “Let’s give the rest to the others.” Daemen stated, and started to place the muffin neatly away in its wrapping paper to keep it safe. Shmuel didn’t argue with him about taking it from him. “Wouldn’t you like to go shopping?” Daemen asked the brunette who was just vacantly gazing at the groups of people roaming on the streets. “We're only in the city tonight before we leave too.. god knows where.” Daemen exclaimed to Shmuel so he could hear him over the chatter of the people walking by, but still he remained silent.
“Come on.” Daemen carefully adjusted himself out from his seat and brushed the crumbs off his satin emerald green and black square patterned pants. Although it was below freezing, Daemen was ironically hot blooded, and rarely felt cold. He dressed down in just a double breasted velvet in a dark emerald green vest, and a matching velvet trench coat- with a cashmere grey scarf tucked into his vest. They both of them were going to be walking around tonight, so he wore his regular black leather oxfords.
“Ready?” Daemen asked, only for Shmuel to let out a sad sigh. Daemen came around to Shmuel’s side, pulled his chair out for him, and took him gently by the arm to stand him up. “I’m putting the rest of the muffin in your bag, I didn’t bring mine.” Daemen mentioned, just in case he wouldn’t be surprised if he found crumbs in his bag later. “Fine.” Shmuel replied and started to reach for his coat that was resting on the back of the chair, only for Daemen to lift it up into his hands. Daemen motioned for Shmuel to turn around, and slipped the brunette’s arms into the sleeves of the auburn and caramel colored fur coat.
“Are you warm enough in this?” Daemen asked, now shifting Shmuel back around to face him as he tenderly pulled the neck of the fur coat to cuddle his neck. “Yeah..” Shmuel pushed Daemen’s finicky hands away from, and adjusted his scarf himself. Shmuel quickly pulled the front of his matching tweed jacket from underneath his fur coat with a huff. Shmuel had a few amounts of clothes layered on, so having to put it all back into place was frustrating. “You’re touching me too much..” Shmuel whispered sharply, before he glanced around to see if anyone happened to be staring at them. Daemen gave out a breathy chuckle, feeling unbothered by the possibility of onlookers judging them. Shmuel dug out his black leather gloves out from the pockets of his beige brown tweed pants, but started to have a hard time putting them on due to how tightly fit they were. Daemen just slyly smirked, knowing without his help to put Shmuel’s gloves on he would struggle immensely. “Oi vey..” Daemen gruffed fondly, leaning on one of his legs, before he placed a hand onto his hips, watching Shmuel frustratingly try to pull his gloves on.
Finally, he managed to get them on after a minute of fighting with his gloves. Daemen sighed in relief with a soft laugh, looking affectionately at Shmuel and his messy head of hair. Shmuel took notice of this and smacked Daemen’s stomach with the back of his hand. “Ow!” “Come on..” Shmuel rolled his eyes, already quickly stepping off the cafe’s patio. “What? I can’t admire you?” Daemen exclaimed as he caught up to Shmuel just to grab him by the arm, “Am I not allowed to do that too?” “You’re really annoying me..” Shmuel grumbled, before he aggressively shoved Daemen’s hand off from his arm with an irritated look in his deep brown eyes. “Fine.. sassy.” Daemen yawned, he could already feel sleep burning in the back of his eyes. “Should we go catch up with them?” Daemen asked, he walked closely beside Shmuel to keep him from bumping into anyone as they started making their way through the crowds of people.
“I don’t care.” Shmuel sniffled, his nose already beginning to feel itchy from the chilly wind. “Watch out Shmuel..” Daemen grabbed Shmuel by the arm to keep him out of the way or from stepping onto the tails of dresses. “Too many people..” Shmuel groaned with another sniffle, and rubbed his nose with the back of his sleeve. Daemen hooked his arm around Shmuel’s waist discreetly from underneath his coat to keep ahold of him from knocking carelessly into anyone else. Shmuel didn’t react to Daemen getting a hold of him, instead kept on rubbing at his nose and not paying attention.
“Shmuel pick up your feet!” Daemen exclaimed as he lifted Shmuel up by the waist to keep him from falling forward. Shmuel started to drag his feet dramatically with a small smirk on his face, clearly very amused by Daemen’s valiant effort to keep him from fumbling. “What is up with you..” Daemen held Shmuel tightly from underneath his coat to hold him straight up, only for the brunette to start laughing under his breath. “I will hold you like a baby if you keep doing this, ya know..” Daemen grappled with Shmuel around the skirts of dresses, or the backs of their heels.
“You asked for this.” Daemen started to lift Shmuel up by his hips to pick him up, but Shmuel swiftly wiggled out of his grip, and quickly marched ahead of Daemen through the crowd- as if nothing had happened. Daemen felt a playful smirk beginning to pull onto his lips while watching the back of Shmuel’s fluffy head of hair aimlessly strolling off. Daemen shoved his hands back into his coat pockets, and walked a couple paces faster to catch up to him. From a long distance, Daemen could smell Leon’s cologne. Leon had a niche and specific scent to him that it was easy to tell him apart from everyone else in a crowd. If he was with the others, then he was the target to follow to find them again.
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Leon took a knee onto the cold concrete, making sure to be careful not to lose his balance and startle the cats. He delicately took apart three small halves of the chunk of the blueberry muffin in his large hand, making sure not to break any more pieces off. Once he took apart the muffin into its proper halves, he gently placed the pieces onto different sides of the concrete to allow each cat to have their own half. “I do not have much, so please share amongst yourselves.” Leon softly said as he slowly moved back to give the cats their space to feel comfortable enough to safely eat. From a distance, Leon intensely observed the three tiny cats start to creep over to the halves of the muffin. They look to be very young.. possibly kittens, he thought, but it was hard to tell due to how underweight they seemed to be based on their size alone. Leon turned his gaze away from the cats as to not make eye contact, hoping they would approach the food on their own now.
The cat’s became startled by the noises of a group outside the dark alleyway, and backed away from him and the food again. Leon patiently sat there, waiting for the tumult of people to finally pass by. He turned his attention back to the cats to see them much closer to the pieces of muffin, now standing only a few inches away from it. Leon watched intensely from the corner of his eye, it took a moment of just the hum of noises from the streets for the cat’s to begin to get close enough to sniff the food. The three of them went for one of the halves of the muffin together, which he expected, but didn’t mind it as long as they ate.
Once he saw the cat’s look down and started to nibble at the food, he turned his intense stare back to them now that they were distracted. Where is their mother?, he thought now deeply curious to know if their mother was close by.. or was with them at all. Now that the cats were in the moonlight, he could see they were different spots in shades of brown, orange, and white. He couldn’t smell mom anywhere, which he found upsetting to say the least seeing as the three cats were rather malnourished. They did look old enough to hunt for themselves, but he was still unsure of how true that theory was. Leon wanted to find out if he was right, but knew that he was going to be hustled to come back to the others once they found out where he was hiding.
He tried to recall if there were any other food vendors he had passed along the way before coming here, in hopes that he could run there and back with more food for the cats. Leon solemnly stared at the cat’s as they went about quickly scarfing down the pieces of muffin. Their short haired coat looked soft to the touch, and he wished to reach out to pet them, but knew it would just scare them away. Leon hadn’t been able to touch one of them in a while due to how skittish the cat’s would be whenever he would spot them while traveling.
Leon gently patted his pants pocket to check for any coins, but felt nothing. He then patted his coat pockets, and still found nothing. Leon sighed through his nose, frustrated that he would’ve left the room without any pence, and had to rely on the others for now. He noticed with all the fumbling he was doing in search of coins that it had startled cats, and they had retreated back into the darkness without having finished their food. He thought he was too much of a nuisance for the cat’s to relax with how big he was, and feared they thought he was too imposing because of this. “I’ll be back..” Leon whispered before he warily tried to get back onto his feet, careful not to scare the cat’s, but it was no use. He sighed sadly as he watched the cats promptly recede back into the darkness, knowing it was due to his carelessness once he stood up. Leon made a plan that he would seek out the others and ask to see if they had any pence they could spare so he could get something to “eat”.
He straightened himself up from his strained position on the concrete, and did his best to silently make his way out from the alleyway. Leon stepped out from the darkness and back into the lit up city street, filled with people strolling by making their own noises. He brushed both his hands together to wipe off the dust from his brown leather gloves, and then brushed off the dirt from his taupe wool trousers. Leon ran a tough hand through his hair to get it back into shape from it’s disheveled state after kneeling forward for a while. He didn’t want to look like he was doing something other than waiting for the others, so he straightened up his coat and tucked his tie back into his vest. From where he stood, he peered around in search of familiar faces, but couldn’t spot them out of the crowd.
This was the last place they must’ve seen him in, if he remembered correctly. He made a mental note not to stray too far from where they left him. Leon stuffed his hands into his coat pocket to remove a small silver arabesque engraved case, before he clicked the latch open to reveal a set of cigarettes. He took up one of the cigarettes from its holder and placed it in between his lips, shut the case, and shoved it right back into his pocket. Leon patted his back coat pocket in a small panic, unsure if he had put his lighter in there before walking out earlier. He sighed in relief once he felt the metal tin and yanked it out from his pocket.
Leon nonchalantly lit the cigarette from in between his lips, with the flame from the lighter drifting onto his thumb due to the wind, but did not feel it from the thick callus covering the bed of his thumb. He took a long drag from his cigarette, and deeply inhaled through his nose. Leon let out the smoke with the exhale, but made sure to lean his head away from the people walking by. He was sure he would be there for a while with how the others took their time, and he felt anxious that he couldn’t tend to the cats as soon as he wanted too. Leon wasn’t hard to spot because of his looming height compared to the average passersby, so he didn’t care to look out for them.
Leon could feel eyes intensely staring at him unapologetically for a moment before walking by. He hoped he didn’t look suspicious, or scary in any way to the people walking past him, considering he wasn’t in his group, he thought he stuck out like a sore thumb. Leon was perfectly fine being alone, but being alone in a large crowd was upsetting to him and made him rather anxious. He distracted himself, and wondered if a fabric store happened to be close by so he could pick up some leather for his books. That meant he would have to hustle the others for pence to buy it.. But he was running low, and they were only in the city for a night. Leon too another long drag from his cigarette, with the other hand ran his thumb across his wedding ring anxiously, hoping the others would find him soon.
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