Hinterlands
Feb. 16th, 2009 12:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
taras_olekseiTaras Oleksei was a long way from home.
He knew it with a certainty that lived quietly under his tattooed chest, as if he could feel how far he was from Leningrad.
It was nights like this - lying in bed, alone, bare skin freshly showered, warm under clean sheets - that he felt it more keenly than he did during the day.
Where you are isn't as important as who you're with, Lasha had said, and he was right, but when Taras was alone, the where grew longer, like a shadow under a low, harsh sun that never set, and just as hard to escape.
He held the phone against his ear, waiting, eyes closed to the darkness.
There was a pause, then a click.
"Connecting you now, sir," the operator told him.
The phone began to ring, and it sounded close.
He knew it with a certainty that lived quietly under his tattooed chest, as if he could feel how far he was from Leningrad.
It was nights like this - lying in bed, alone, bare skin freshly showered, warm under clean sheets - that he felt it more keenly than he did during the day.
Where you are isn't as important as who you're with, Lasha had said, and he was right, but when Taras was alone, the where grew longer, like a shadow under a low, harsh sun that never set, and just as hard to escape.
He held the phone against his ear, waiting, eyes closed to the darkness.
There was a pause, then a click.
"Connecting you now, sir," the operator told him.
The phone began to ring, and it sounded close.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-02-25 07:08 am (UTC)"Yeah, I know it's like that. Strength isn't anything without...if you don't..."
He paused, frowning, searching for the words to express what he wanted to say. Barshai had a way with words. He made them sound easy.
Taras' eyes, mismatched and narrowed, flicked back and forth in the darkness.
"If you don't have the will to back it up," he said, finally. "If you don't know what you want, and go after it. If you're not willing to do what it takes to get it."
He fell silent for a moment.
"You and me, we're the same that way, da? We had nothing, and now we have what we want."
Taras set the bottle aside. He could hear Barshai's breathing on the other end of the line, soft and even.
"How old are you, comrade?" he asked suddenly, curious.