Disclaimer: Thanks for inventing beyblade, Mr. Aoki Takao. If you want this, it's yours. I claim nothing but the right to fan it up all over the place.

Closest Friends

By Dixon Oriole

Oliver sat on the upper deck of the Allupato with a breeze playing along the nape of his neck, tendrils of his green hair escaping from rubber band and propped sunglasses to tickle at his ears. He paused from painting the exact shade of the cloudless cerulean sky onto watercolor paper, flipped his overlarge pink sunglasses down onto his nose and raked his hair back again, rubber banded more securely.

Oliver pushed his sunglasses up, blinked at the blinding white paper until black spots left his vision, and dabbed a bit more blue onto the end of his sable paintbrush. Streaked a darker line of sky, maintaining the delicate white gap between brown land dotted with white-painted, blue-trimmed, round-edged buildings achieved probably, only possibly, by spreading a layer of fondant over each chocolate cake internal structure, and windmills and red-flowering tropical trees and trellises, infinity pools and half-stray calico cats on the narrow streets and neat squares and staircases beneath blue sky above bluer sea. Rising white and blue against sheer brown cliffs from the metallic sea, the unadulterated glitter, with Enrique's boat Allupato just out of sight as the vantage in Oliver's picture.

Enrique's boat Allupato. That name a small joke between Enri and a billion of his closest friends, and Oliver offered a humoring smile as Enrique's familiar exhilarated whoop reached him, and then the following splash as he flung himself from the side, and then the cheers and cackles of a pair of a girls who'd probably by now shed their bathing suit tops.

The din from across the boat, the happiness in their conversation, girls squealing and laughing and whining his name, stretching it, "En-rrriiii-queee!" or Bianca with her sing-song, "Enri-poo!", Enrique ever indulgent with the massaging of sunscreen and outrageous with the wandering hands and long grin, irresistible with freckles appearing by the minute, and to Oliver all of it felt eternal, inarguable. Intensely right. Vivid as the colors, white and blue, brown and red, and the cats furred orange and gray, shying from touches but tolerating company, under a sun that beat onto his shoulders through the fabric of an unbuttoned white button-up.

On the streamlined face of the Allupato. Room for just enough to have fun and nothing else, Enrique said, when Johnny came to the dockyard and commented that it was an awfully small boat, wasn't it? When Enrique said, "I think Oliver and I, a couple of ladies, out on the Adriatic— I think that's all it needs to be absolutely perfect." And he'd shrugged, turning his face contentedly into a clean breeze same as the one playing now with Oliver's hair. Regarding the little Allupato, at that time unnamed, with a gleam in his eyes like joie de vivre. "Oh, and champagne," Enrique had remembered, "Not to forget that."

"Sure. You two'll make a fun couple of ladies," Johnny joked, shrugging also, allowing each his own.

Oliver heard two more splashes; the girls joining Enrique overboard, tempted away from sunbathing. The screaming that followed the usual jovial screaming. "Olivieeerr!" Bianca sang, her friend laughing and then Enrique joining in counter-point, "Oli-ver-errr!"

Oliver looked down from the island still miles off, back at his picture. Decided it ought to dry before he added the tiny black details on the land, and in about half an hour the shadows would get longer and it'd be awfully pretty to paint that light. That soft golden sheen over these colors. Oliver cleaned his paintbrushes in a plastic cup of water and patted them dry on one of Enri's towels, tucking them each back in the individual slots of the black roll-up case, tucking his paints away alongside.

He stretched out on the sun-warmed upper deck, towel propped below his neck, flattening out his sweaty knees with one arm thrown over his eyes. He felt the tiny individual muscles of his back relaxing. Felt the breeze and the heat sinking through his skin, into his muscles, organs, bones, all the way through into the deck until he felt he was no different from it, he was part of it.

He was a permanent fixture on the upper deck of Enrique's little boat. There would be a party under the stars; a topless girl would splash champagne onto his sun-warmed face. Towels would be laid across his belly; topless girls, French and Italian, would lay their cheeks on their folded arms and absorb the sunlight, photosynthesizing, feeling also like a part of the boat forever or at least hoping to feel that way, and sink into the wood like this with every muscle, every tiny individual sinew slackening, and they'd layer on top of Oliver, on top of the wood, over and over again and the Allupato would devour them all.

Spit out their bleached bones. Bubble the finest champagne through their skeletons, gushing the fountain of youth.

Had to get the youth somewhere.

Oliver didn't defy this fate. In the life of Enrique it felt too perfect, eternal, inarguable, intensely right—he felt as though the golden sheen of one half hour in the future existed right now, flowing through his veins, and it was called youth, and it was called beauty, and was vivid, and if you slit his wrists he'd bleed champagne. He felt sweat trail down his hairline. Moved his sunglasses down over his closed eyes, and outstretched his arm reaching towards the sky, splaying fingers and letting the breeze encircle. He felt that one day as part of the deck, during the party under the stars, he would feel the soft scrape of high-heels slowly dancing.

Oliver expected that later he'd feel the expelled breaths of two bodies collapsing in a disorganized pile. Chuckling and talking in hushed tones to preserve the sanctity of nightfall, rather than because there was anybody to overhear. Holding their long glasses steady above them as they shifted against each other getting comfortable. Maybe Bianca sing-song, though he had a feeling she would have long ago joined him as part of the deck. Her friend might even follow if she played her cards right and became a habit of Enrique's. If she became like Oliver and Bianca, which took some time but not very much effort.

Mostly took an ability to have fun. That was after all what this boat had been invented for and it wouldn't keep you and burn you as fuel for its journeys, for its accommodation and facilitation, unless you'd perpetuate and never stand in the way of fun. Didn't have room for you otherwise.

The familiar whoop, the crow, the splash. Enrique, rather, without room for you otherwise.

Oliver's hand fell back across his heated face but it was disembodied and he didn't quite feel the touch or at least understand its meaning. He was too balmy and complacent, and perfect, listening to the laughter of Enrique and the girls, the pauses that meant somebody was kissing or making a joke, and then more laughter, the occasional scream and splash as somebody threw somebody else overboard. The light lap of the impossibly blue waves. Admittedly bluer than even he could paint. An impossible spectrum all layered but never quite touching, greens and purples and silvers and reds. Perhaps he could manage it with acrylics.

But Enrique's long feet slapped along the ladder and onto the upper deck, drops of water trailing, and Oliver felt wanted, and that the familiarity went both ways. "Lo, Enri," Oliver said in a voice he couldn't imagine came from his throat, because he no longer had a body let alone a throat. Just floating an inch above the wood, feeling the air a bit before he sank calmly down forever.

"Lo, Oli," Enrique said, falling with the knock of bony angles at Oliver's side, almost splashing into his own pool of water he was so soaking wet. Almost steaming, radiating heat that buffeted against Oliver's radiating heat. Smelling pleasantly of the Aegean and sweat and his breath on Oliver's cheek was champagne. "You didn't come when we called you. Playing hard to get? The girls aren't that type."

"Mmmm. I'm marinating in sunshine," Oliver said.

"Careful you don't fall asleep out here. Dressed like this you'll get the funniest burn, then what? I won't be seen with you looking like that, sir, it's so amateur."

Oliver cracked one eye open, mildly surprised that they still existed for use.

"What?" Enrique asked, pausing under a look they both knew wasn't actual disapproval, smile twitching dubious, fingers an inch from the lapel of Oliver's shirt.

"You've already coated me in sunscreen, Enri. I'm beginning to think you'd prefer me naked." Oliver shut his eyes again.

"I prefer everyone naked," Enrique said, patting Oliver on the stomach rather than going for the shirt. He listened a moment to the girls, chatting out of sight behind and below them. Said conspiratorially, "If I'm up here long enough they'll come looking for me, and you'll have no choice but to go swimming anyhow."

"Mmm. Can't swim now; bones are melting."

"How does that feel?"

"Lovely."

"Let your hair out of that, will you?"

"It's too hot to have loose. It'll just frizz."

Patiently, well aware of the answer, "Hm… So what've you been doing that's so fun, huh?" Enrique lurched up and leaned over him, snatching in the direction of Oliver's pad of watercolor paper. Flopping onto his back again with the prize held up against his bent knees, leafing through with a sigh of approval. Said at length with the usual grin in his voice, "You ever get the urge to play dress-up as a normal person, head down along the Seine and set up shop as a street artist? I imagine you'd do quite well, Oli. Make an honest living."

Both of their temperaments prevented that from being insulting. Oliver concentrated his entire sense of touch on the sweat rolling down past his nose, pooling onto where his top lip would have been if he'd had a body, cooling and drying in the breeze. Imagined making an honest living alongside the Seine, taking his packed lunches on a blanket by the water where he could watch the ferries and wave back at the tourists, imagining Enrique might come along and they might share a bench, resting with Enrique's head in his lap and his head on Enrique's shoulder. A man on clarinet playing an accompaniment to life. Didn't reply with more than a smile because he sensed Enrique was getting around to something.

And as expected the Italian became ponderous, face almost falling out of its smirk, paused at an old speed-painting of the windmills and the ocean beyond, all the shadows done in purple. "I had a dream of the hidden Paris," he said. Conspiratorial again.

Oliver opened both of his eyes, because this boat was named Allupato. It existed to facilitate and perpetuate fun, and Oliver was willing to die here and now in slow sleepy warmth if he'd be fuel to keep the party going, if that'd make Enrique happy because Enrique had fought with his parents, rather his father because his mother enjoyed her Quaaludes, and it had been bitter, and Enrique had called him with such stress in strangely limited words that Oliver had invited him over, but Enrique had immediately refused. Said instead to join he and Bianca and Bianca's friend on the new boat; he wanted to take off a while. Roadtrip to the Aegean and the islands slathered white. Drink some champagne.

Really he wanted to drown himself in a good time, but that was fine. It was Enrique's method of self-medication, and usually not destructive, and better than Quaaludes and usually Oliver was invited so why not? Of course it didn't resolve anything in the long run but it took the immediate edge off. In any case what Enrique had said about a dream, how he'd said it, that wasn't talk for the Allupato. That was something appropriate for Oliver's many-pillowed pale yellow oriental-upholstered king sized bed, in the room with the wrought iron balconies that were always open and the long white curtains that drifted.

'The hidden Paris.'

Oliver had expected some comment about breasts.

But dreams were appropriate for sinking into the cool comforter forehead to forehead before an afternoon nap. Granted Oliver would die happily to give Enrique whatever he liked; maybe Enrique meant he was ready for healing, not just numbing? Heading home to the Parisian flat, sinking into the big bed and muttering together about things that had been pressing on his attention, that he couldn't tell girls, before waking up and following the sweet smells to Oliver in the pale blue kitchen. Leaning around while he made breakfast. Perhaps he wanted Oliver to temporarily patch him up, here and now.

Enrique lay on his side, propped on an elbow towards Oliver, blonde hair getting blonder, heavy-lidded green eyes on the island thoughtful but unafraid, sea water drying and leaving his skin dark with freckles rough to Oliver's touch. Waiting. And he grinned when Oliver remembered he had fingers, and touched his shoulder, and opened his mouth to smilingly speak on the subject of hidden things and then promptly shut it again because here came the girls.

Cooing and chortling and falling all over them, "Enrique-poo! Olivier, what are you doing molesting him? Why did you abandon us to die in the sea? We had to drink all of your booze, you know, there isn't a drop left. How ever will we manage the return journey?"

And Enrique flipping their salt-rough bodies to the floor, laughing and beyond fond, the letch, "Didn't I tell you, Oliver, that they'd be up here any minute? I have them absolutely trained! They can't stand to be away from me."

"It's true, it's true! Come down and let us throw you overboard again." And Bianca dragging, down the ladder with her knotty-wet hair whipping, "Olivier, darling, you too, at least molest Enri where we can watch!" Bianca's bold friend pulling on Oliver so he came unpeeled from the Allupato like a layer of skin dead from sunburn, lit up with the glow of champagne in her bloodstream.

All this chaos sending Oliver's art supplies rather askew, even, at a glance he noticed, smudging his latest watercolor with sea that they dripped, the girls. He felt cheerful with an edge of delicious regret, and too warm and heavy, attempting to remember fast how relaxed leg muscles might clench and work and carry him down a ladder, but he stumbled anyway and the girls had to catch him, everybody laughing, and Enrique shouldered Bianca, who sang, "Saa-ave me, Oli!!" before being pitched off the boat, her friend soon after.

The shadows longer now, how Oliver wanted to paint them, but this was fine; he tossed away his shirt and sunglasses and the golden glow came out of his skin to land on Enrique below the deepening sky, a color Oliver couldn't find anywhere else except in the reflection of his own eyes, which perhaps Enrique knew because those were the eyes he stared at, grinned at now, and around them the shadows purpling, the tiny black details of the island getting darker, the water shining silver-white and this fountain of youth aboil as the girls laughed. And although Oliver was trying to cut back on saying the word 'beautiful' because it became redundant after a point, he thought he could make an exception for this moment, what with Enrique standing by the slippery edge offering Oliver a hand, grinning in a way only momentarily apologetic, immediately numbed.

They'd get back to the conversation later.

Oliver nodded, perfectly complacent about whatever fate. Whatever you want, Enri. He remembered that voice over the phone so desperate as to sound foreign and he took Enrique's hand and held on tight because the girls had Enri's skinny ankles and were out to take them both down. And also because he wanted to hold Enrique's hand. And the girls—counting down, "3… 2… 1…!!" yanked—

And Oliver, still used to not having feet independent of the Allupato, tripped on a discarded bikini top and was startled into laughter, counterpoint the familiar victorious whoop, dragged forwards and then splash into impossible blue.

END

a/n: Because I can. The moral of this is that Oliver is a llloooottt of fun, because he lets me be poetic and describey in a way that, say, Tala never does. Nor Tyson, because Tyson doesn't notice a damn thing. And Tala has Things to worry about. But Oliver isn't businesslike and Oliver is excellent, and so is Enrique, and the two of them together on a boat? Magic. feather-duster, I couldn't get the idea out of my head since we talked, so forgive it for not being BEGA. That'll arrive ASAP. And forgive me for referencing Enri/Oli breakfast-makings of yours, hope you don't mind. So something relatively cheerful (I know, unexpected right?) for you, I hope you enjoyed, and many balmy Mykonos days to yeh! Dahling. If there are any spelling errors or stupid sentences I'll no doubt catch them in the days to come. See note: I don't know a damn thing about painting or boats.

You have no idea how I was sniggering, with "Allupato" meaning, of course, apparently: "adj. (familiar) hungry for sex, especially after a long period of celibacy." Um. Horny. I feel like Oliver would be nonchalant about something like that, neh? This thing brought up unavoidable images of Oliver dressed as a nurse. Cue fawning.

I can't remember if Bianca is the redhead or the blonde of Enri's girlfriends, so no verbose descriptions of her from Oliver, unfortunately. I do so love the verbose descriptions.

ALSO I LOVE YOU FOR READING!!