Interrogation

[taras_oleksei]

"I don't get it," Taras said.

He was frowning as they walked, using the time to think. He actually lagged behind Isaev a little.

Ilarion never hurried anywhere, though today he strode down the hall, bootheels ringing with a clarity of purpose. Only Taras wasn't clear.

They passed a window. Outside, it was still foggy, a thick white mist that enclosed the MVD building like mountains of snow, insulating and isolating, as if they were in some remote place up north, not in civilized Leningrad. Taras didn't like not being able to see across the street.

He looked away, turning back to Isaev.

"This guy is under suspicion of..."

A secretary approached, clutching a stack of files to her chest. She stepped aside to let them pass, squeezing so close to the wall it seemed like she was afraid they would knock her aside. She murmured something as they walked by.

Taras glanced behind them, to make sure she was out of earshot, though he wasn't sure why.

"...muzhelostvo. And some other political shit."

Their destination loomed. The doors to the interrogation rooms were simple, marked with numbers, but nothing else. Almost benign.

Taras stopped at the first door, then imposed himself physically between it and Ilarion, putting his hand on the frame to block Isaev's entry. Ilarion looked at him as if he had finally noticed Taras was there. His eyes were narrow, slivers of ice. Taras stared back.

"This isn't a violent crime, Isaev. So what gives?"

Comments

[ilarion-isaev.livejournal.com]

Mercurii.

He'd never called the dancer by his name.

Not in the silence of the empty Mariinsky, for the months he kept 'surveillance'. He'd surveyed plenty.

Topography.

But never a name. Never in all those nights. Were they years? Never a name given to the land he thrust his flag into and claimed with the impunity of an Isaev.

Not in the silence that followed opening his door one night to find the hazel-eyed dancer leaning against the sill, quietly assuming.

It was a strange sight, one he'd never imagined.

The dancer had raised his eyes, smoky and low-toned in the mellow light of antique hall sconces.

"I wonder where you are," he'd said, at last. "You don't come to disturb my evening session."

"I don't," said Lasha.

He'd stayed away almost three months, intending to break himself of this habit, this habit that held no loyalty or reason. What was once pleasure and painful catharsis had evolved to become almost solely pleasure, and no longer did he stray next door merely to assuage his anger in willing flesh.

He had, he'd realized, new reasons.

Like drinking, when you began to enjoy it for the taste and not the aftermath. Like cigarettes, when they stopped making you cough.

"Have I outlived my use to you?" the dancer had asked, glancing at his lower half obliquely. "Or will you have me inside, officer?"

"You found me because you're afraid. Don't be. I've taken my pound of flesh and more."

The dancer had rubbed his instep along his shin in a strangely elegant gesture of physical ease, almost amused.

"Do you think I don't tithe to the Ministry in other ways?"

Lasha was silent.

"...I came because I was aching. Some muscles only respond to partner stretching."

Ilarion had stepped aside and let the dancer enter. Stood quietly, observing, with his arms crossed. Let him draw a bath and strip off his sweat-soaked dance gear. Let him bathe, then towel off, all the while no words being spoken.

Let his jacket be persuaded away from him, and his shirt and tie. Let the naked, damp haired dancer lead him into the swallowing and thirsty darkness of his own bedroom, let himself be drawn into his own bed, where he would fuck the talented and lauded Barshov deeply and unrepentantly for the remainder of the night.

And yet, he never once called him by name.

Oh, he knew it well. It was indelibly stamped upon a back wall of his mind.

It was typed on the paper that Oleksei now studied with a furrowed brow.

Barshov did not betray their past, nor their present. Though his gaze had shifted when he saw Ilarion. He wasn't sure what to expect, Lasha knew. In the same way that no one knew what to expect from Aleksandr.

"Merkurii Barshov," he said, quietly. "They are recording everything you say."

It was a deliberate, double-edged statement.

They. Are. Listening. To. Us. Now.

"So if you have been speaking to yourself, if you have whispered any secrets, they are already known."

The dancer met his eyes from beneath his sheaf of shining hair.

"I have no secrets, kommisar. If I did, you would know them."

Lasha's gaze flicked away as if scorched.

"That's good. I would like to believe you. As would my associate."

"Believe that I could not be more open before you."

Isaev heard the undertone in the words, the pledge of sacrificial reverence.

His eyes narrowed.

"It seems to me that a man of your talent is a feather in our cultural cap, and perhaps, if you were to perform a service for the State, suspicions might be redressed more easily."

He glanced up, sharply, indicating Taras.

"This is Captain Oleksei. You will answer our questions fully and without hesitation, I think."

Barshov held his gaze, quietly fearless.

"Of course I will, kommisar. I've never once hesitated to satisfy your demands."