Murmurings on the other side of midnight

I'd almost forgotten how much effect there can be just from talking to someone for a while. That disturbs me a little, but it's not so bad.

I'd seen him before, but we'd never really had a chance to get acquainted. Hopefully this won't be the last time we run into each other. He was good to talk to.

...though it veered to topics I would rather have avoided a bit too often for comfort.

It's quiet. Peaceful. Think I'll get some sleep.



hajimenoippolitThe impact of cold as he walked out of the infirmary building didn't clear Rakitin's head as much as he had hoped. Instead, it only intensified the foreboding that lay on the nape of his neck like tasteless lead jewelry.

If anything, he sould have been optimistic. The nameless man was on his way to recovering, physically. The rest was time.

The other damage, visible only in the shadow at his eyes and the halt sometimes at his words, would not be so easily repaired.

Helpless anger twisted at Polya.

What the hell kind of world was it that inflicted such wounds from the dark?

Not one to turn your back on.

Dimly, Polya understood that he should have been exhausted. And he could feel it, at a distance, as if the fatigue belonged to someone on the other side of a mirror.

Returning to his quarters was not a seriously considered option. He was too raw right now to take the risk. Better to put it off.

Nightmares. Hah. How credulous did Liadov think he was?

Enough that he should feel the obligation to lie to him. What did it matter to him, who did what with whom? It was no concern of Ippolit's. It had nothing to do with him.

Stumbling on the two of them in that alleyway did have some repercussion, however. Some meaning beyond a stolen glimpse of someone else's intimacy, precious and strange. It meant he should be ready. Not all ambushes in the night were bound to be so friendly.

The lights of the firing range shone a cold welcome.

Rakitin had always found arms practice somehow soothing. It demanded patience and focus, and produced clear results. It was a sort of meditation, though a very loud sort. The range was practically deserted, given that it was the middle of the night. That was an advantage. Practice had given Rakitin a certain amount of skill, but he would never be a soldier, and he didn't need some damned young professional laughing at him.

He found a lane and began, letting the rhythm of it narrow his concentration to a single point.

Nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with me.


leshovikLeshovik walked across the grass toward the firing range, Dragunov slung over his shoulder.

It was a funny thing, to walk openly across a base he'd prowled around for weeks. He still wore his urban camo in muted, mottled shades of grey, but mostly because he didn't have much else to wear. Now there was no need for a balaclava, though. His short crop of blond hair shone under the sodium lights.

He could hear the steady pop-pop-pop of weapons fire, and it surprised him. He'd deliberately come out to the range late, so as to avoid crowds.

Well.

It wasn't crowds, exactly, that Leshovik was avoiding. It was more like a certain dark-haired, dark-eyed spotter he knew, a sunny little angel with devil's wings. His relationship with Aryol was just a little too complicated right now for him to deal with, and he didn't want to run the risk of meeting him accidentally on the range. At the same time, he hadn't wanted to forego target practice completely.

With Lynx away doing...whatever he was doing, a little night shooting suited Leshovik just fine.

The gun sounded like a Makarov to his ears, standard issue. Not Aryol, then. Good.

As Leshovik approached the cages, he spotted the range's lone occupant. The pathologist he'd spoken to at mess earlier, the tall, gangly blond man that had told him not to take candy from strangers.

Rakitin, he remembered. The man had grinned widely when he talked about dead bodies. Pathologist humor, Leshovik supposed. It wasn't far off from Black Ops humor.

One look at the man's stance told him that Rakitin was unaccustomed to shooting guns - he hunched forward too much, held his arms too stiffly, and he held his bracing hand a little high on the stock. Probably not a lot of call for guns in the lab.

He entered the cage next to the pathologist's and offered a nod across the partition.

"Nice night for shooting."


hajimenoippolit Rakitin looked up quickly at the voice, bemused that he had already fallen into a sort of trance.

It was the one with the nice smile, Leshovik. He had had something of a philosophical conversation with Nika that night at the mess hall, while the dark one looked on, laughing behind his black eyes. He had a natural intelligence to him, the kind that knew things without having to ever be told. He held his gun with the familiarity of an old friend.

Rakitin was surprised to find himself glad to see someone.

"Yeah," Polya said, lowering his weapon for the moment and summoning a small, guarded smile of greeting. "Good to have company, too. I wasn't expecting it, this time of night."

leshovik "It's good to practice at night," Leshovik offered with a shrug. "You never know when you'll have to shoot."

He pulled his rifle from his back and looked down briefly as he prepped it. He loaded the standard rifle ammo he'd gotten from the armory, rather than waste his precious steel-jacketed rounds on the range. Who knew when he'd be able to get more of those again, since Groznyj Grad didn't have any native Dragunovs. Fucking Kasya. He would probably never stop using that relic of a weapon.

Leshovik glanced up at Rakitin after a moment.

"How's the shooting going?" he asked, casually, though he thought he could probably guess at what Rakitin's target groupings looked like, just from the awkwardness of man's stance.

Leshovik could offer him some immediate advice, but he was trying to be less of an asshole these days.


hajimenoippolit Rakitin gave the target a rueful sideways look.

"Not...so well," he admitted. "I think he's dead, but he had a lot of time to be angry about it first."

Not everyone had the burden of natural talent.

Polya glanced at Leshovik, and his practiced grasp on his rifle.

"Can you show me? How to shoot better, I mean," he asked on impulse, then amended quickly, "If you have the time."


leshovik Leshovik smiled a little as he glanced down the range at the target. This Rakitin had a sense of humor, he had to give him that.

"Sure," he said, "I have lots of time."

He slung his Dragunov around his shoulder again and crossed over to the cage where Rakitin stood. Sitting his rifle down on the ledge, he leaned back against the wall and folded his arms casually.

"All right. Handguns aren't my specialty, but I'll help if I can. Go ahead and get ready to shoot again, but don't fire. I just want to see how you stand."


hajimenoippolitPolya's memory had been correct. He did have a nice smile.

"Thanks," he said, with honest gratitude. "I need all the help I can get."

He brought the gun back up, trying not to let the selfconsciousness of being watched translate into his stance.


leshovik Leshovik assessed the man's stance, which looked even more awkward than before. Far too much tension in the shoulders, and that translated to a stiff hand, which always decreased accuracy.

He shook his head.

"All right, first thing you need to do is relax."

Leshovik rolled his shoulders like a warm-up exercise to demonstrate.

"Loosen up, you know? You've got to stay relaxed and let it come more naturally. Think of it like..."

Leshovik paused, brows furrowing slightly, searching for an appropriate analogy.

"...fucking," he finally said, with an apologetic shrug. "It's a lot easier if you're not tense."


hajimenoippolit Rakitin was startled into a laugh that drained the stiffness from his body, as well as blunting the edge of the tension that came from being looked at with appraisal by a strikingly handsome man. One who was, furthermore, lifting his shoulders in a way that did quite a bit to emphasize their build.

Not fear, quite. Only-- a sort of sharpening. Not even entirely unpleasant. Odd, that.

"That's a good way of putting it," Polya said, sloping a smile backwards. "Sounds like it could be painful if you do it wrong, though."

He shifted slightly, letting his muscles fall into a more natural and comfortable arrangement.

"Like that?"


leshovik Leshovik nodded.

"Good. You'll notice that the recoil isn't as hard if you hold the gun a little less stiffly. So yeah, it actually is less painful."

He flashed a brief smile and moved forward.

"Elbows like this. Hands like this," he coached, and gently positioned the pathologist's grip with light and guiding touches. "Now, chin up, shoulders back, legs spread the width of your shoulders. Yeah. Like that. Good."

Leshovik stepped back to study Rakitin's posture.

"All right, much better. Now just remember, relax. If it helps you, close your eyes and take a few deep breaths before you shoot."

He went to the controls on the side of the cage and sent the target forward, then changed it out for a fresh one before he gestured down the lane.

The groupings didn't look good, but he didn't study them closely, instead putting the target aside.

He looked back at Rakitin, and gave him a confident nod.

"When you're ready, try again."


hajimenoippolit The soldier's touch, brief and fleeting, left the memory of warmth wherever it fell.

He had a good voice, too. Low and assured, without insistence.

Leshovik was just being a nice guy and helping a comrade out. Polya knew that. It didn't mean there was anything wrong with enjoying it a little more than, strictly speaking, he should have. Was there?

Skin-hungry. It was pathetic, probably. Wasn't it? With trying to follow Leshovik's instructions while giving due appreciation to the medium they were delivered through, Rakitin didn't have time to spare for chastisement.

It made the adjustments easier, Polya realized, that his attention was divided. It gave him less to spend on the overthinking that was his usual habit.

All too soon, the soldier stepped away.

Deep breathing, eh?

Experimentally, Rakitin tried it. Closing his eyes, he let air flow through him, listening to his heartbeat the way he did before attempting a divination. Becoming receptive as a conduit of an outside force.

When he opened them, the target seemed nearer.

Polya let the shots ring out, unhurried, no longer trying to force them into place by sheer will. The reports sounded like a release of the world's energies, natural and inevitable as rainfall.

The distance between groupings shrank like wet wool in the sun.

Rakitin was surprised at how much it pleased him.

He grinned back at Leshovik.

"You make it seem so easy."


leshovik Leshovik chuckled, and gestured to the target.

"You make it look easy. See? Much better."

The pathologist seemed almost surprised by his success, as if he hadn't really expected an improvement and now found himself a reluctant convert.

Leshovik smirked, self-satisifed.

"If you want to get good, all you need to do is practice every day, long enough to relax but not so long you get sloppy. Your attention needs to be focused, but not..."

He gestured, vaguely.

"Hyperfocused. If you know what I mean. It's a balance, but like anything, it comes with practice."

Leshovik examined the target again, nodding in approval at the groupings.

"You're a fast learner. And you have steady hands. I guess that's important in your field."


hajimenoippolit "I guess we've got one professional similarity there," Polya said, preening at the praise.

"You're a good teacher. Usually I just get called hopeless."

He considered.

"Well, in between being called what the hell are you looking at and pay attention."

He ran his thumb along the gun's handle. Over time, he had become more familiar with it as shape than as function.

"Every day," Polya murmured. "That might be neccesary."

Routine was good. All the more if it kept him far away from the guest quarters in the nighttime hours.

He cocked his head at Leshovik, curiosity adjusting the elevation of his eyebrows.

"What are you doing out here in the middle of the night, anyway?"


leshovik"Oh, well, you know," Leshovik said, vaguely.

He waved a hand back in the direction of the Grad proper. "It's a little too busy out here during the day for me. Too many people."

Leshovik didn't actually mind people. Though he wasn't as gregarious as Aryol, he was sure as hell a lot more social than Kasya. It was just very specific people he wanted to avoid.

He shrugged.

"And besides, I'm used to staying up at night. Snipers' hours. I need to be active now, sweep the base every so often in addition to the extra patrols and precautions in place. There are some things only another sniper would notice."

It was a half-truth, since there really weren't any enemy snipers around, really, but he at least went through the motions. Unlike Aryol, who had seemed to abandon night patrol altogether. Though in another way, that suited Leshovik fine too.

He cocked his head then.

"What about you? Shouldn't you be sleeping?"

hajimenoippolit "Can't," Polya said simply. Not that he'd tried yet, but it didn't take much foresight to know a lost cause. "Anyway, I tend to keep odd hours, too. Assailants haven't lately had the courtesy to work on a standard schedule."

He didn't mention the other reason, though the thought of it struck now with less brutality. The controlled burst of fire had diminished the pressure of something in him.

For an instant, he felt as though he might have the courage to do something incredibly stupid.

"Patrol must be risky," Rakitin mentioned, without letting his eyes avert, or slipping behind the comfortable protection of absentmindedness. Letting his expression stay sober, and his eyes take on significance. "A handsome man out here alone."

He thought of that day in the lab, and the weighted glances Lynx and Leshovik had exchanged. He could have been wrong.

Well, there was no way of telling what anything would do until you shook it. And eyebrows always grew back.

Polya's eyes flicked off into the distance. He smiled softly at no direction in particular.

"You must have someone waiting for you."


leshovik "Well, I'm - " Leshovik started, then his mind caught up with the handsome part and he paused, having to re-focus everything he'd been about to say.

Men didn't usually say things like that unless they meant it in a very specific way, and looking at the pathologist, Leshovik was sure that Rakitin had meant it that way. The man's eyes had held his, quietly intent.

Leshovik knew he was handsome. He had solid Russian features, sharp cheekbones and a hard jaw, winging brows, expressive mouth. He'd never had a hard time finding a partner when he happened to be in between lovers, but after Kasya, his appetite had been hit or miss until Aryol.

"I have...an arrangement," Leshovik said, carefully, but he met Rakitin's eyes as he said it. "It's a little complex."

That was an understatement, he thought.

He studied Rakitin for a moment. The pathologist looked thoughtful and distant, like he was thinking of something far-off.

Leshovik spoke vaguely, just in case he had misinterpreted the man's intent.

"I suppose it must be hard on you, being new here. Do you have someone back home?"


hajimenoippolit Polya's brows winged upwards. If that was a No, it was a very gentle one, and certainly far from the No, and stay the hell away from me you little freak he had unconsciously been expecting.

Come to think of it, Rakitin wasn't entirely sure why that should be his default prediction.

(Regardless of how perfectly Nika had fulfilled it...Ippolit shunted that image of appalled shock out of his mind.)

Mirrors, when he paid them any attention, often surprised Polya by presenting a reasonably attractive man. Odd coloration, yes, and something to the eyes that tended to make people uncomfortable, but more inquisitive than repulsive. He kept himself in good shape, out of some kind of misguided vanity. There was, he was forced to conclude, nothing egregiously hideous about his outward appearance.

All right, there was the association with dead bodies. People were superstitious about the oddest things. But Leshovik didn't strike him as the squeamish type.

"No," Polya said finally, deciding not to squirm under the sniper's stare, not to play it off as a joke or any of the other hundred methods of running away. "I don't."

Curiosity struck with its usual disgregard for tact or timing.

"'Complex?'"

Polya caught himself and relented.

"That is, if it's all right to talk about. I understand if it's personal."


leshovik Leshovik shook his head with a bit of chagrin.

"Well, I guess it's my fault for making it complex. I'm sort of involved with two people at the same time."

He winced at how bad that sounded, when he said it that way.

"But they both know about each other," Leshovik added, quickly.

As if that made it better, he thought, yet somehow, it did. He guess it just meant he wasn't a two-timing bastard behind anyone's back.

Just with their full knowledge, instead.

Leshovik knew his morality, or lack thereof, was a little skewed from normal, but that was what Black Ops did to you.

At least, that's what he told himself.

He smiled ruefully.

"Anyway...I'm going to break it off with one of them, but that's not the reason why. But still, it makes it...complex."

Leshovik paused, studying Rakitin's expression, wondering what the man though of him now.

"You must not think much of my...choices, comrade. But...I'm trying to do the right thing."


hajimenoippolit Polya cocked his head in puzzlement.

"Why would I think that? Wherever people can find happiness, that's their own perogative. Not a standard arrangement, but what is?"

Reasonable enough that three men in close conditions would draw themselves closer. Polya's conclusion hadn't been entirely wrong, after all.

His eyes wandered, wistful.

"Sort of...nice."

He lift his eyes up and gave a lopsided smile.

"It does sound complicated, though."

More so, in that it must involve Lynx, who clearly loved the Colonel. But the way he and Leshovik had behaved had not suggested a matter of momentary convenience. No wonder Aryol had observed with such a look of--

Polya's thoughts lost traction, slid, and crashed gently into a snowbank.

"The two other members of your unit," he said carefully. "You, Lynx, and Aryol. Right?"


leshovik "Yeah," Leshovik said, slowly.

He wondered if his earlier impression had been wrong, and Rakitin had merely made a friendly observation about his appearance, and hadn't meant anything more loaded by it.

The pathologist almost seemed apprehensive to speak aloud the idea that the people Leshovik was involved with were men, and members of his own unit.

He supposed it followed logically that they would be, since they had come in from the cold and didn't know anyone else. Rakitin had made that deduction only after his initial acceptance, and didn't seem to like it.

Leshovik knew what the KGB and MVD used to do to social degenerates, men who fucked each other, but Black Ops went so far beyond those rules, he was virtually untouchable.

Still, Rakitin could cause him trouble.

"We're alone out there, comrade," he said, quietly. "A man needs something."

He said it like it was the only alternative, like if he had his choice, he'd be with a woman. It wasn't true, but Leshovik thought he should probably hedge his bets on this one.


hajimenoippolit Rakitin blinked, confused. Leshovik had gone from openly dicussing his lovers to withdrawn and wary in the space of an instant.

"Well, yeah," Polya said, agreeing with the point, though he didn't understand why it was made.

He was a little too familiar with what a man needed.

Did Leshovik think Polya was criticizing his choice of partners? Maybe he already knew of Aryol's- well, infidelity wasn't the right word, but something like that. It could have even been agreed upon, as part of their arrangement. He had been speaking about breaking it off with one of them a moment before, though he hadn't specified which. In the best case scenario, what Polya had witnessed would be old news.

Coincidentally, I'm out here to avoid the cries of passion Major Liadov and your lover are likely wringing out of one another at this moment in the room next to mine. Funny old world, isn't it?

As much as Polya found deceit distasteful, sowing strife between comrades was far worse.

In fact, he realized, it might not be that at all. Leshovik could have thought Polya had his eyes set on one of them.

In any case, there was a misunderstanding somewhere. It was time to speak frankly.

"I apologize," he said, with a hint of sheepishness, "for...coming onto you, earlier. I didn't know."


leshovik"It's all right. It's not like I have it tattooed on my forehead," Leshovik said, lightly, relaxing.

He eased with the knowledge that he'd been wrong, and it wasn't his choice in partners that Rakitin objected to, and it had been something else that had caused his sudden caution.

"Yeah, Aryol and Lynx," he said, shaking his head. "And if you want to hear something really debauched, comrade, for a while it was three of us together, not just me with each of them separately."

It had been so fleeting, he thought. But it still resonated in his memory, evoked feelings like looking at an old photograph.

Leshovik regarded Rakitin, wondering what had spooked him earlier.

"I guess you know them both. That must make it a little awkward for you."


hajimenoippolit Rakitin relaxed a few degrees. Leshovik had understood his intent, then, but wasn't angry or insulted.

"I've run into them a few times," Polya said.

Including having pulled a gun on one while he was conducting a thorough oral cavity search on my friend with his tongue.

"From what I've heard," he confided, "three at once hardly registers on the scale of depravity around here."

He kicked a scuffed toe at the black ground.

"To be honest, at first I had it figured for being you and Lynx."


hajimenoippolit "Well, I guess it was a little obvious, wasn't it?" Leshovik said, and his smile wryed, turned gentler. "Back that day in your lab. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be..."

He gestured.

"Well. Obvious, I suppose. But he and I...well, it's new. And good. So I'm not going to overanalyze it."

Leshovik offered the pathologist another wry smile.

"I could stand to see more of him, but he's been busy lately I guess."

He leaned back against the partition and brushed a hand though his hair. He'd finally found the base's barber, and had gotten it razored short and tight, the way he preferred it. It wasn't as good of a job as Aryol did, but it was sufficient.

"But anyway, I guess it's good that I haven't broken any records. You wouldn't know it by my escapades, but I'm really pretty traditional. Or I would be, if I didn't do that."

He laughed, and fished out one of Lynx's cigarettes from his pocket. "Do you mind if I smoke, comrade? Oh, wait. I don't have a light. Never mind."

Leshovik tucked the cigarette away again, shaking his head.

"So I take it you're...looking?" he asked. "Seems like there's plenty of men around. What about your partner? He seemed intellectual enough for you."


hajimenoippolit Polya turned the wince into a laugh. It came out half-formed and hard as an apple plucked a month too early.

"Major Liadov?" he said lightly, as if the notion were an absurdity. He supposed it was, at that. "He wants nothing to do with me. He's had no trouble."

Rakitin had set the gun down at the beginning of the conversation. He stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned back against the partition, craning up at the stars.

It was an auspicious time for honesty, the deep night. An hour for bats, thieves, revealing words, and other things that didn't bear direct lighting. There was no malice to this man, none of that will that struck out and cut without warning or, worse, reason. Only a sort of stain of unsurety somewhere, his voice or the grounded way he stood, running along the edge of easy confidence, nearly invisible and greatly disarming.

So said Polya's appraisal. Instinct goaded him to distrust it, but he had grown tired of fear.

He smiled bitterly.

"He found someone hardly an hour after turning me down."

The kid with the sunny, careless grin.

Even if Polya's tongue had known the words to say it, he wouldn't have been able to face turning on Leshovik and breaking that look of fleeting, fragile peace.

"Anyway, you shouldn't have to hide it, feeling that way about somebody."

His smile faded to the genuine.

"It was kind of sweet, really."

Polya's knuckles brushed against something metallic.

"Oh. Here."

He tossed Leshovik a battered silver lighter.


leshovik Leshovik stared for a half moment, surprised by the sudden motion. Belatedly, he reached out to grab the lighter, caught it by the tips of his fingers.

He had quick reactions, but then again, he better have.

"Thanks," he muttered.

He patted down the front of his pocket and dipped long and slender fingers inside to retrieve the cigarette he'd abandoned.

"You sound kind of pissed off about it," Leshovik observed as he stuck the cigarette in his mouth.

"Not about having to hide it, feeling that way about someone. I mean about your partner. This Major Liadov turning you down."

Leshovik met the pathologist's gaze as he lit his cigarette with the lighter, finding a certain hardness in the pathologist's eyes, steel under the sentiment.

He took in a long drag, savoring it, but after a moment, pulled out another cigarette and offered it to Rakitin.

"Want one?"


hajimenoippolit "Yeah," Polya said. "I do."

He didn't often smoke, taking up the habit and putting it down again as the whim struck him, but for everything there is a season.

"Thanks, comrade."

He took the proferred cigarette gratefully and lit it, watching the spark jump and become a red patch of coal. He sagged as he exhaled, something going out of him with the veil of smoke that commingled with the stars.

"I guess I am. Mad, I mean. But there's no reason, is there? What doesn't happen doesn't. It's one of the laws of physics, or something."

He laughed a little.

"At least you had the grace not to look so fucking horrified. I appreciate that."

Rakitin's heel scuffed the ground absently.

"Ever had that happen to you? Somebody you--"

Polya broke off and shot a glance at Leshovik. His chiseled features, compact, powerful built, his rough affability.

Polya's mouth twisted with wry humor.

"You probably haven't."


leshovik Leshovik frowned over his cigarette.

"Somebody I...?"

He didn't quite follow the thread of the conversation, but he shook his head anyway, and blew out smoke into the crisp night air.

"Well, if he was an asshole about it, sure, there's a reason to be mad. Especially if he's a friend of yours. Or is supposed to be."

Leshovik shrugged, reflectively.

"Some people are dicks, though, you know? You can't expect more from them."

He grinned around the cigarette.

"Believe me, I know. But don't worry about it. There are more fish in the sea, like they say. You need to find someone who's looking for the same thing you are."


hajimenoippolit Rakitin sighed contemplatively.

"No, it's not that. He-- was kind about it, besides looking like I'd thrown a dead slug at him. I can't blame him, really."

He gave a wan smile.

"I was only angry at him for a change of pace from being angry at myself."

A dolorous air had come to settle around Polya's shoulders. He shrugged it off, straightening. He raised his eyes to the soldier's, relieved and heartened that they were free from visible pity.

"You're a good man, listening to me go on like this."

His thumb flicked at the cigarette, his eyes following the spark down to the pavement.

"Sometimes it's hard to believe that there's any such thing as a person who really knows what he's looking for."


leshovik Leshovik's brows went up.

"What's not to know?"

He frowned slowly as he regarded the pathologist, who had looked at him, then seemed to be almost purposefully avoiding his gaze.

"And what do you mean, you can't blame him?"

Leshovik shook his head.

"You can't blame him for turning you down like an asshole? How is that your fault?"

He paused, and then closed his eyes as he breathed in the cigarette smoke deeply, held it, then blew it out above his head.

"Christ, I love a good cigarette. And they're all good, if you know what I mean."

Leshovik opened his eyes to regard Rakitin thoughtfully.

"Sorry," he said, belatedly. "Don't mean to bombard you with questions. I just think you're approaching it wrong."


hajimenoippolit Rakitin waved it away, leaving contrails of smoke in the air.

"You're probably right," he said wryly. "How would you approach it?"

Leshovik was the kind of man who saw thing clearly and directly, a quality that Polya's scurrying mouse of a mind found admirable and fascinating.

"But it wasn't like that, really. We were just drunk and exchanging indiscretions. Mine was just...a little excessively indiscreet."

The sniper's confusion was perplexing. It was almost as though he didn't think horror at the prospect of attraction on Rakitin's part to be perfectly natural.

"What I mean is... Well, how do you know what you want? Especially when it's something you should know better than to feel. Let alone when it's wrong or right to act on it. How do you know you're not just redirecting something for someone who's out of reach, toward whoever happens to be nearby? You can't expect them not to throw it back."


leshovik "Well...."

Leshovik paused, and had to think about that for a while. He didn't quite follow the particular brand of logic that Rakitin sported, but was willing to acknowledge that maybe he'd missed something.

"I guess if you're not sure, maybe you need to just go for it, and try. Because if you don't, you'll never know anyway, right?"

He offered up a shrug.

"I think you're overthinking it, maybe. Or else, we're talking about two separate things. I mean, if you have nothing, and you take a risk and it doesn't pay off, then you still have nothing."

A smile rose crookedly at the corner of Leshovik's mouth, and he looked at Rakitin more curiously.

"Because...you're not beating yourself up over liking men, are you?

He paused, studying Rakitin's expression, which seemed somehow pained.

"Or is it liking a particular man?"


hajimenoippolit Polya laughed. The prospect of that one who he wanted was so distant that removal from it failed to hurt. Like fireworks glimpsed from the end of a long road, beyond where the ash could fall.

"Something like that. Someone completely impossible."

That was part of it, maybe. That his existance itself ran counter to every law Polya knew, and yet was in its essence undeniable.

"Someone who would never see me."

But he had, in a way. The massive hand on Polya's shoulder. Asking him to stay. Not ordering, even, or simply having him transferred. As a cog in the machine, yes, but, Polya realized, what else had he ever acted like? And that would be enough.

"It's a good thing, probably. He'd snap my neck like a stick if he knew."

It was easy to give voice to the unthinkable, this night. Polya's heart was too free with its secrets. That would be the death of it someday.

"Have you ever known someone who...just being near him makes you happy? Who, just knowing that he's in the world makes it a more interesting place?"

Rakitin smiled at the ground.

"No, liking men doesn't bother me. The opposite, really. That was one thing biology was kind enough to choose for me. Natural attraction isn't a decision, so it can't be a mistake."

He shrugged.

"Women are nice enough, I suppose. I just have- bad luck with them. I was even engaged, once, when I was younger. It didn't end well."

Odette. Her sable hair and quixotic anger. Setting a hand to steady her shoulder as she coughed, the grim triumph in her eyes as it passed, as if her will had faced the expression of the sickness and defeated it. Pulling the handkerchief from her lips, indicating the red stain. "Do you know what that is? That's freedom."

Polya had never quite understood her. She didn't mind.

"Never knowing," he said, Leshovik's words echoing back to him. "You know, you're right. That would be much worse."

He smiled at Leshovik.

"It's a good way to think about risk. I guess I don't have much of a gambler's soul."

He grinned sideways.

"Maybe the less pride you have to lose, the harder you hold on to it."


leshovik "I don't know," Leshovik said, smiling, good naturedly. He leaned back against the partition and shook his head.

"I guess if it's impossible, then you have to learn to have new dreams."

He flicked his cigarette at the roof of the shooting lane over their heads.

"I used to want to be a pilot, like my father. But I washed out of flight school. And not because I didn't have the reflexes for it, or the eyesight, or anything like that. It was because I get airsick bad, and there's no medicine that can help me."

He laughed to himself, thinking of it now, and his smile turned more rueful.

"But after that was when they recruited me to be a sniper."

Leshovik winked at Rakitin.

"But that's not really stuff I should be talking about. Don't tell anyone, okay? Black Ops."

He finished his cigarette and flicked the butt to the concrete, stepping on it to rub it out.

"But anyway, if you're hung up on this guy you can't have, and your friend is an asshole, and random Black Ops snipers you meet in the middle of the night have complicated lives, you need to look for someone else. Christ, if I don't get laid regularly, I'm a complete dickhole."

He grinned then.

"And if I do, I'm just less of a dickhole. But seriously, when was the last time you got laid? You're kind of wound up."

hajimenoippolit "That obvious, yeah?"

Polya rubbed sheepishly at the back of his neck. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised - lately he'd felt as though the seams holding him together were strained to the point where the least touch could break them. That it could be something as simple as a physical urge was surprising. Daunting, as well, since he couldn't imagine that particular urge getting fulfilled any time soon.

"Not so long. Before I came here. A month ago, maybe. Just some guy who happened to be in the right place, with the right look. If that even counts. If any of them ever did."

Polya's left hand twitched in sequence against the partition like a spider, cornered and spotting the broom.

"It was supposed to be a stopgap measure, you know? Meaningless sex with strangers, never seen or thought about again."

The chestnut-haired laughing man. Polya thought of him, sometimes, and tried not to wonder.

"Whenever I couldn't stand it anymore. Just until something real came along. Hardly worth it, hating myself for days afterward."

Rakitin shook his head, laughing at himself.

"God, you're too easy to talk to. You must hear about people's boring problems all the time."

True, Leshovik didn't look impatient at all. The same mentality that made it possible to track a target for days without moving must come in handy for dealing with lovelorn scientists.

He was probably right, as difficult as it was for Polya to imagine erasing the Colonel's magnificent presence from his heart. If he set his mind to it there was a chance he could find some libidinous soldier willing to settle on him for a lark. It was what a wiser man would do.

Ah, well. If Leshovik could take a dream defeated with grace, so should he.

"So sniper wasn't your first choice. How do you like it?"

Polya smiled.

"Don't worry. I won't tell anybody."


leshovik "I love it," Leshovik said, and grinned sideways.

And he did. Even thought it was dark and wrong and when he was at his lowest, he wanted to throw his rifle from him and repent for what he'd done. Fifty-three lives, stopped with a bullet.

"I mean, I get to shoot people in the head, comrade. What's better than that?"

Quickly, he held up a hand.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I'm not that sick."

Sick enough to joke about it, though, he thought.

Leshovik's expression dropped, turned distant and furrowed for moment.

"Truth is, sometimes I wonder why I do what I do. Except for the fact that someone has to do it, and I'm good at it. Someone like you - "

He gestured between the gun Rakitin had placed carefully on the shelf, and the pathologist himself, drawing Rakitin's attention back to the weapon.

"You only use that if you're forced to, right? Your job is to save lives, not to take them. More of a noble profession. Yet neither you or I will be looking for work anytime soon."

Leshovik shrugged.

"As long as my job is necessary, I'll do it. But anyway...never mind about that. We're talking about your sex life, right?"

He flashed a grin, and his dark blue eyes gleamed like the reflection of sun off the Caspian.

"Honestly, comrade, you need more than a stopgap. I think you need to change your approach. GRU's not like the KGB. On a base like this, you can find a steady thing, and you don't have to worry about anyone reporting you. You should be looking for friends, not one night stands. I've had the best sex with people I know and respect."


hajimenoippolit Polya felt a clench in his gut. He emitted a low laugh.

Funny, that this near-stranger could so succinctly express what Polya wanted most.

"That's what they are, isn't it?" he said quietly, almost with awe. "Your lovers."

He smiled off at a corner of the night.

"That's good."

He noticed that the cigarette was little more than ember and memory, and flourished the remnants.

"Thank you, comrade. I needed that."

His raw nerves had knitted up a bit, with the aid of nicotine and company.

Rakitin let the tame spark fall and reward its service by pressing it flat under his heel.

"I've never cared much about getting caught," he admitted. "A place is a place, up North or otherwise. That was never the problem."

The fatal flaw was in the man, not method or means.

He looked down at the darkness at the end of the lane.

"Dying's one of the few things I'm not afraid of."

It was uncomfortable to admit.

It was not bravery. Only a suspicion that his hold on physical existence was so tenuous that severing it would be a formality.

Only the unknown and alien held the power to terrify.

His smile was grim.

"Besides, I don't think I've ever known anybody who was enough of a sick bastard to report it. Crimes that don't leave a body behind never felt like they have much to do with me."

He fell silent for a moment.

"I don't think you're sick," he said then, with the muted sincerity of a confession.

His toe nudged absently at the ground.

"My job...it's not exactly noble. By the time I come in, it's too late for that. Really, all I do is...close the gates."

It was a morbid topic, he knew, but Leshovik seemed proof against being shocked by mere morbidity.

"I've never even used that against someone," he said, indicating the gun with a sideways twitch of his hand.

A sheepish smile returned to him, wandering back to the flock.

"Thought I was going to have to, yesterday. I'm just glad it was a false alarm. Here's some advice; if you're going to be exciting and ambush one of your lovers around here, make sure it's out of view of any idiot who might get the wrong idea."


leshovik Leshovik had listened to Rakitin's musings silently but attentively. Not only did the pathologist not get enough sex, Leshovik reflected, he also didn't seem to get to talk to people much.

Leshovik didn't mind listening. Rakitin had an interesting way of seeing things, sort of cerebral, definitely different than anyone else Leshovik knew. He managed to follow most of it.

He paused over that last bit, though, replayed it in his mind but still didn't follow.

"What?"

Leshovik's brow furrowed.

"Ambush your lovers? Who got the wrong idea? A false alarm of what?"

Leshovik cocked his head.

"What happened, now?"


hajimenoippolit "Well..."

Rakitin tried to think of a good way to put it, and decided that there was nothing for it but the direct approach.

"I was heading back from mess, yeah? And I see this guy - this blond guy - way off ahead of me get grabbed by somebody I can't see and hauled off behind a tank."

It didn't feel right to be telling Leshovik this, considering who was involved, but there was no need for specifics.

"Naturally, I think he's going to get done in. Next on the table."

The terror and relief of that night would not fade for a long time, if ever. Nika's face, cold and white. No. That hadn't been what happened.

"So I charge in, waving that gun around, thinking I've got a murder in progress."

Embarrassment and residual relief tinted his face as he rolled his eyes up at the sky.

"Turns out...they weren't fighting."



leshovik Leshovik blinked, frowning for a few seconds.

Then he grinned.

"Ohhhh," he said, long and knowingly. "But they couldn't have, ah, gotten too far along if you ran right over."

He laughed at that.

"Well, it's ballsy, I'll give them that. Though you're right, not a good idea given what's going on here."

It reminded him of something Aryol would do. Exuberant but utterly reckless.

Leshovik shook his head, smirking a little.

"I hope they had the good grace to at least look sheepish. Did you give them a stern talking-to before you sent them on their way?"


hajimenoippolit "Not quite. Somebody else saw, too, and had the same idea."

Rakitin's hand ran a quick sweep through his hair. The less said about Deimos, the better.

"We were a while sorting that one out, I can tell you that much."

It hadn't been entirely wise, bringing up the pair he was out here to avoid.

Polya laughed.

"God, with all the horny bastards out here, you'd think even I'd be able to find a spare one."


leshovik Leshovik's brows shot up.

"Have you really been trying that hard? No offense, comrade, but somehow I don't think so."

He gave Rakitin a pointed look.

"Not that you should be standing on the street corner, but you have to be a little more aggressive to get what you want. Flirt more, you know? Eye contact, touch, proximity. Those sorts of things. If you see someone that looks good, talk to him, see if you like him."

Leshovik smiled, more wryly now. He thought about smoking another cigarette, but ultimately decided against it. He'd only felt the need because he'd been socializing, he realized. Smoking with a comrade. When he was alone, he didn't smoke as much. He wondered why that was.

"If no one's approached you yet, it's probably because they're afraid of you, or think you're standoffish. There's a reason why you guys are sitting alone at mess, you know. You're an authority figure, and no one wants to get in trouble."


hajimenoippolit The idea of anyone being afraid of him made Rakitin grin, and shake his head with rueful humor.

"I'm...not very good at that sort of thing. I think it has less to do with being unapproachable than with being..." He reached for an appropriate phrase, and winced at the accuracy of the one he found. "...fucking creepy."

He thought it over some, and amended,

"But you're probably right. It's a good place to start, anyway."

Polya's eyes slipped sidelong to Leshovik. He managed to smile.

"I'd bet a good bottle of vodka you've never had that kind of problem."


leshovik "Being fucking creepy?"

Leshovik let out a laugh. Soft lines pulled at the corners of his eyes, not quite crow's feet. The faintest hints of maturity in an otherwise sharply youthful face.

"I'm Black Ops. I'm supposed to be fucking creepy. If I'm not, I'm doing my job right. I'd be fucking insulted if someone didn't think I was fucking creepy."

Leshovik's smirk turned briefly more feral, but then he shrugged.

"Any soldier who has a problem with what you do is a fucking pussy, comrade. In fact, you should cultivate the mystique. Some people like that sort of thing."



hajimenoippolit Rakitin blinked.

Leshovik's face held nothing but honesty, bright and hard as sunlight off snow.

For once without a forced or nervous edge, Polya laughed.

"You know," he said wonderingly, "I never thought of it like that."

He'd been speaking less of the job than of... something inherant, unnameable but obvious as a scar. The selfmade poison that permeated him and made him strange.

But, come to think of it, the same could go for that, as well.

And....

Little-used processes of Polya's mind squeaked timid gears.

This not-quite-stranger, who had no reason for false fronts and, Polya suspected, little use for them, had never reacted with disgust, even to his clumsy advances. In fact, he had called Nika, however incorrectly and misguidedly, an asshole for rejecting him.

There was something Nika had said, that other long, strange night. Assuming the world would look at you with scorn and cast you off, and thus giving it no choice.

"I don't think you're creepy," Polya said, before thinking, then ducked his head a little as he realized his mistake. "No slight intended."

Nights here had an otherworldly clarity, a sense of possibility and portent underwritten by the note of frost in the air. If he walked off now, into the vivid darkness at the edge of the range's lights, he might meet a talking fox or a hut on chicken's legs.

"Here's a philosophical question," he said. "Can a person change? Whatever they are, or who, or why. Is it possible to alter your own substance in any way that matters?"

The dark was pensive, threatening as it was inviting.

"Or is it like a lizard, that however many times its tail is pulled away a new one grows in the same shape?"


leshovik Leshovik frowned, the line of his brows turning sharp and tight.

It was strange, to hear the pathologist voice aloud things he'd been thinking. In his darkest thoughts, Leshovik wondered if he really could change, or if he was just kidding himself. If he'd always be the kind of raging asshole who hurt the people who mattered most to him.

His gaze skipped away.

"It has to be possible," he said, quietly. "I have to to believe that. Otherwise, if there's no point in trying, there's no point in living."

His words were far rawer than he'd meant them to be, the kind of confession one did not give to a casual acquaintance. It tended to scare people off.

After another moment, he looked up, and summoned a sideways smile.

"I mean, don't you think, comrade? We're Russians. We have to struggle."


hajimenoippolit "Yes," Polya said softly, to suit the intimacy of the bare concrete and their shared pool of light. "I think so, too."

The sniper hadn't had to ask what he meant. Maybe the notion was universal.

Somehow, Polya didn't think so.

More likely, and better, that two immeasurably different hearts that had fallen into similar phase should be brought into the same space by the subtle conspiracies of chance.

"They say change is frightening. I'm more afraid of the opposite."


leshovik "Yeah," Leshovik said, after a moment. "I know what you mean."

He looked at Rakitin, meeting the man's steady, quiet gaze.

Everyone had their own demons, Leshovik thought. Snipers and pathologists alike. It just went to show that even when it seemed like someone had their shit together, you could never be sure.

He pushed away from the partition.

"Well...you know, for what it's worth, I think you can do it."

Leshovik shrugged.

"I think we both can."

He paused to strip off his shooting glove, then offered his bare hand to Rakitin.

"Well...I should see if Lynx is back. It was good talking to you. Maybe we'll see each other around, if we keep the same shooting schedule."


hajimenoippolit Rakitin took the sniper's hand and shook it, feeling the imprint of calluses against his own palm, unmarked but for the strip of old burn scar near the heel. (The reflex to catch a falling object was less than beneficial when that object turned out to be acid.)

Though Leshovik could hardly know what he meant - in fact, Polya wasn't entirely sure himself - the vote of confidence was strengthening.

"Thanks for showing me how to shoot," he said. "We should have a drink sometime."

Polya smiled, open and direct.

"You're a good guy."


leshovik One side of Leshovik's mouth tipped up, slowly.

"I'm trying, comrade."

He gave Rakitin's hand a firm shake then withdrew, pausing to put his glove back on and pick up his rifle. The weight rested against his shoulder, familiar and reassuring.

Leshovik offered the pathologist a nod, meeting his gaze. His smile was half-wry, but not insincere, though he knew Rakitin didn't really know him. Not the way Aryol did. Not the way Kasya had.

But maybe it didn't matter. Fresh start and all that.

"I'm trying," he said again, then left, tossing a wave over his shoulder as he went.


hajimenoippolit Polya watched the sniper for a moment, until the edge of the light slid off his back like thin oil and he was part of the sea of the night.

Rakitin went to pick up his gun and return it to the holster. Sleep didn't seem like such an impossibility anymore. If Liadov and his companion were still at it at this hour, he wished them the joy of it.

He called up the target and took it down, his fingers brushing over the small round marks, some erratic, some in constellations closer to the heart.

"Aren't we all," he murmured.