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taras_olekseiTaras lay in his bed, and thought he could still smell Lasha.
He had woken up alone again that morning.
It had been full dark yet. He'd lain quietly in bed for a moment, groggy and disoriented, listening to the wind hiss between buildings outside, reaching for the cool sheets next to him.
Lasha was sick, he had recalled, almost immediately.
That had given him the impetus to get out of bed. He'd looked at the clock. It was well past three. Taras got dressed, and went looking for Lasha.
He wondered which he was getting more used to: expecting Lasha to be there when he woke, or finding that he was alone instead. He supposed one went with the other.
He'd swung by their office first, then on a strange hunch, Liadov's. Both were empty. The mess hall had been Taras' third or fourth possibility, and it was there that he had found Lasha.
But Lasha had not been alone. He'd been sitting at a table with Liadov.
Isaev and Liadov in their grey uniforms, sitting across from each other, like comrades.
Fancy pricks, both of them, tall and blond haired. Lasha was arctic smooth and sleek while Liadov was more languid and sensual.
The sight of them together had made Taras feel strange inside, and his chest ached with an emotion that was not quite anger, or anything else he had a name for.
Taras had stood in the doorway, watching them for a while, mismatched gaze fixed and ravenous.
Eventually, he had turned away, and left them.
He had seen Lasha, later that day, looking a little pale but carrying himself with unthinking grace, as always. More or less normal. It was the less that worried Taras, but he hadn't seen any sign of Ilarion faltering.
Taras had hit the gym hard that evening, then showered and eaten, like usual.
Now, he lay awake in the darkness, thinking.
Finally he got out of bed, and pulled on his pants, and a clean undershirt, and grabbed a newly-acquired bottle of cognac off the counter.
His door was one down from Lasha's.
Taras knocked on Isaev's door.
"It's me, Lashka."
He had woken up alone again that morning.
It had been full dark yet. He'd lain quietly in bed for a moment, groggy and disoriented, listening to the wind hiss between buildings outside, reaching for the cool sheets next to him.
Lasha was sick, he had recalled, almost immediately.
That had given him the impetus to get out of bed. He'd looked at the clock. It was well past three. Taras got dressed, and went looking for Lasha.
He wondered which he was getting more used to: expecting Lasha to be there when he woke, or finding that he was alone instead. He supposed one went with the other.
He'd swung by their office first, then on a strange hunch, Liadov's. Both were empty. The mess hall had been Taras' third or fourth possibility, and it was there that he had found Lasha.
But Lasha had not been alone. He'd been sitting at a table with Liadov.
Isaev and Liadov in their grey uniforms, sitting across from each other, like comrades.
Fancy pricks, both of them, tall and blond haired. Lasha was arctic smooth and sleek while Liadov was more languid and sensual.
The sight of them together had made Taras feel strange inside, and his chest ached with an emotion that was not quite anger, or anything else he had a name for.
Taras had stood in the doorway, watching them for a while, mismatched gaze fixed and ravenous.
Eventually, he had turned away, and left them.
He had seen Lasha, later that day, looking a little pale but carrying himself with unthinking grace, as always. More or less normal. It was the less that worried Taras, but he hadn't seen any sign of Ilarion faltering.
Taras had hit the gym hard that evening, then showered and eaten, like usual.
Now, he lay awake in the darkness, thinking.
Finally he got out of bed, and pulled on his pants, and a clean undershirt, and grabbed a newly-acquired bottle of cognac off the counter.
His door was one down from Lasha's.
Taras knocked on Isaev's door.
"It's me, Lashka."
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no subject
Date: 2009-09-07 11:30 pm (UTC)He felt at a loss, not knowing what to say. He had not thought that it had been like that, for Lasha. It was difficult to understand, how love could twist and turn and become something else. Given Lasha's mother and Taras' father, it seemed parental love was as fucked up as any other.
"All right," he said. "I can't tell you different because I wasn't there."
Taras let out a quiet sigh, and rubbed his thick forehead.
"But I was there when you were talking about her last night. And it wasn't bad. You didn't understand it...but the things she said and did were nice."
He looked up then.
"Do you hate her?" he asked, quietly.
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Date: 2009-09-08 03:09 am (UTC)"No," he said, after a moment, grinding out the word with prejudice.
It was true; he did not hate her.
He had always loved his mother. He loved her in a deep place, a place that was buried and stowed beneath the dead leaves of the soul, so that it might never be found. Silent, secretly weathering seasons and years.
"I resent her," he said, his voice unvarnished and raw, but retaining its customary coolness, innate after so long in service. "Resentment is a different animal than hatred."
He closed his eyes, leaning back, feeling the seizure of pain. It was both cathartic and crippling.
"It was the last thing she said," he whispered, his lips wrying in a grimace. "She never stopped being a mother to me until then."
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Date: 2009-09-08 06:19 am (UTC)Taras wondered if that was why Lasha didn't really like girls much.
He stared at Lasha, whose face was tight with pain, like a part of him had been stretched too thin.
He lifted his hand and laid it on Ilarion's head, smoothing back his hair with his palm as gently as he knew how. He continued the motion in a slow, even stroke, letting the strands slip though his fingers. He could feel the tension in Lasha's neck.
Taras grimaced faintly.
"What," he asked. "What was it? What made you...resent her?"
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Date: 2009-09-08 08:25 am (UTC)Her trance broke.
"No, Sanya..."
"Take her to the Kirov," he said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Take her to her lover."
"My children, Sanya-"
"You mean, my children."
He paused long enough for the horror of that to really permeate her senses.
"You would take my children?" she cried, suddenly, the mother wolf coming out in her now, at the mention of her offspring. Oh, yes, Nika. If there are teeth in that pretty mouth, if there is viciousness in any bitch, the cubs will bring it out, let there be no doubt of it.
"You have no children, Isaeva. And soon you won't have that name."
He shrugged, straightening the cuff of his sleeve with a minimal gesture. His sand-blond hair was always darker than hers. He looked immaculate, coiffed. At disparate advantage to her wrecked and ruined state.
"At least let me take Andrei," she pleaded, desperately.
"Andrei?" he laughed, as if she'd said something uproariously funny. "What makes you think I'd give you my son?"
It was as close to an open secret as anything could be. Known, but never spoken of. A white rhinoceros, crushing pianos in his father's house.
Ilarion could not manage to make it vanish from his memory, despite the years that intervened.
Throughout his life, Lasha himself had never spoken of it. Never shared the weight of knowing. Never articulated what occurred that night between his mother and his father, and two of Aleksandr's Ministry cronies.
He had been the only witness; at least, the only witness old enough to understand the travesty of what he was seeing.
It was not until on year during White Nights that he finally unbuttoned his lips and let the story spill and tumble into Nika's lap, and felt the immense unburdening that confession could provide.
Since their division, the weight seemed to have returned threefold.
Ilarion had never told Oleksei about mother, or anything about his family, really. It did not enter the bounds of business, nor friendship. Family was family, and there was no need to subject Oleksei to his.
He didn't know how to put the words in context now, to answer what Oleksei had asked, without opening his vestiture far too wide and letting in the light.
Ilarion stared straight ahead at the wall, coldly seeking words.
"My mother," he said finally, "was unfaithful. My father had her followed, and apprehended in the act. Maks and Ivan dragged her back to the house to face him. He said nothing to me of it. I just happened to be there when they brought her home."
He sighed, hating the act of disclosure, the nakedness of revelation.
"He ordered her out of our home, in front of me. Dressed her down, in front of me. And when she fell apart, he accused her of upsetting the children. Upsetting his children."
Lasha paused.
"That was when he informed her that we were no longer hers. She was stricken, devastated. She begged him for mercy. Not for forgiveness. Mercy. It was a miscalculation on her part, trying to find his heart in the snow."
The bitterness in Lasha's tone was soft and leading.
" 'At least let me take Andrei,' " she said. ' "You've already gotten to Ilarion- I won't let you do it to Andrei, I won't let you warp him into a beast like you."
The clock ticked softly on the mantel.
"My father outright refused."
no subject
Date: 2009-09-08 11:19 am (UTC)Raw emotion flickered across Lasha's expression, tiny hints of expression, too minute for Taras to track or understand. That Taras could see it at all was a measure of the depth of Lasha's pain. Usually Lasha's control was absolute.
It hurt Taras to see it, and even though he wanted to look away, he did not.
Instead, he let his hand brush across Lasha's scalp, inadvertently ruffling his hair, making it stand up the wrong way.
He felt like he owed it to Lasha, somehow, to listen. To be a witness to what he said, especially since it was about his mother, the thing that Ilarion had found too painful to speak of before. He had been angry at Taras for bringing it up and had refused to speak of it. But now, he seemed to have changed his mind.
"You're not a beast. And you're not your father. And your mother - "
Taras remembered what Lasha had told him once, about the worst thing he had ever done.
Lasha had said it was letting his father hurt his mother.
Taras had not asked for many details.
He exhaled.
"Maybe that's why you saw her."
It was not simple. Taras felt slightly out of his depth. He stared hard, eyes intent and focused.
"...you had unfinished business."
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Date: 2009-09-08 08:45 pm (UTC)He paused, eyes fixed and luminous in the low light.
"Someone had to be."
He paused, drawing his robe tighter, absently, with one hand.
His voice lowered, bitter.
"None of them know, Taras. None of them ever will. Not Andrei and his careless abandon, not Masha and her Paris contraband. Not my mother, who died with the luxury of her convenient truths."
Lasha glanced downward.
"Liadov had a word for me, once, before hypocrite. Chiaroscuro. 'Whereas I exist in uncounted shades of grey, Lasha, you are purely chiaroscuro. Light-dark. Never between."
His touched his lips, briefly.
"That's what he said."
A moment passed as Ilarion thought about that.
"I choose to believe him. He always parses things so palatably."
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Date: 2009-09-08 10:25 pm (UTC)He wasn't quite sure he understood it all, but he thought he got the gist, even without a dictionary to look up the fancy words.
He understood the important part, he was fairly sure.
And Lasha was right. Liadov had a way of seeing things, explaining them, in a way that made the truth earlier to take.
But he could not say that to Lasha without explaining how he knew it.
He brushed his fingertips through Lasha's short, sleek hair one last time, lingeringly.
"Da, that's you. You're the best comrade a man could have, and the worst enemy."
He drew his hand away, slowly, watching Lasha.
"And you'll never be alone."
Taras felt something aggressive and possessive stir inside him.
"Even if you don't have anything else, you'll have that, okei?"
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Date: 2009-09-08 10:55 pm (UTC)After a moment his lips parted.
"You're good to me, Oleksei. Don't think that I take it for granted."
He listened to the wind and felt the loss of Taras's rough, uncultured fingers in his hair.
Lasha opened his eyes reluctantly.
His gaze was completely lucid, his manner had returned to solemn and measured restraint.
"I saw her, Taras. Clear as day, sitting on my bed in her evening gown. As clearly as you're sitting before me now."
Lasha paused, rubbing his jaw slowly as his eyes roamed the wall.
"It was real," he said, finally.
He frowned, slowly, becoming inured to the admission, now that he'd spoken it aloud.
"If you died tonight, Taras, would you come back? Are there unsaid words, unfinished business that would make you toss and turn in the grave?"
no subject
Date: 2009-09-08 11:30 pm (UTC)He could not bring himself to speak for a few seconds, but there was no avoiding it, really. He didn't considering himself to be overly superstitious, but just the same, there were topics he didn't want to linger over, either.
His own death was one of those. It was more disturbing to think about that than to think about than the ghost of Isaeva visiting Lasha's sickbed.
Taras frowned heavily, temporarily at a loss, feeling a touch of cold air across his bare shoulders.
"I would come back."
He whispered it, with a softly vehement conviction.
"I would come back to watch over you, Lasha. I would be there in your office with you, in the car, back at your apartment. I would watch you, to make sure nothing happened. To make sure you were safe."
Taras looked up suddenly, mismatched eyes intense, blazing with resolve.
"Even if you never knew I was there," he said, almost hoarsely. "It wouldn't matter."
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Date: 2009-09-09 07:49 am (UTC)His lips parted, but stayed silent, as his eyes searched Oleksei's face.
"I-" he began, brows weaving inward, blinking slowly. "Never knew you felt that way."
It sounded a little idiotic now that it had passed his lips.
He shook himself, laughing a little.
Nervously.
It was sort of a creepy topic, he allowed, now that he'd had a chance to think about it.
Now that Oleksei had had a chance to answer.
"What I meant, of course," he remonstrated, trying to gather his wits again, "is would you specifically come back to...right any wrongs, or redress any lost opportunities?"
no subject
Date: 2009-09-09 08:16 am (UTC)"Well...I couldn't make the people I shouldn't have killed alive again. And I think I've killed all the people I needed to."
He shrugged his broadly muscled shoulders.
"I guess there's my father. But I decided not to kill him."
Taras wondered what Lasha was getting at, if he expected Taras to say something in particular. It was all couched in the context of Lasha's mother returning to apologize, to give her son some comfort and make up for the way she'd treated him.
Taras' frown etched more deeply on his forehead.
He supposed there was the matter of Barshai, whom he had promised to protect.
His mind had been lingering on the dancer, wanting to call him again. More than that, wanting to get back to Leningrad and go see him. Talk to him, and get to know him a little better.
Taras knew that if he were dead, he would miss out that opportunity, along with many others.
The whole subject was disturbing in the first place.
He shook himself, almost violently, like a dog throwing off water.
In the next second, something fell into place, and Taras' eyes widened.
"You're thinking about Nika," he whispered. "If something happens before he forgives you."
no subject
Date: 2009-09-09 08:24 am (UTC)"What? Christ no, I wasn't thinking of that at all, actually-"
In retrospect, he wondered why he wasn't.
He laughed, suddenly, at the absurdity of it all. He was slightly buzzed and he knew it, but it hardly mattered, here in his own quarters.
"No," he said, sobering, holding up a hand, "truly. I've been thinking about her, about what happened. And I began to wonder- what regrets would bring a man, or a woman- back to this world?"
This last he said softly, as he remembered his mother's cold touch on his fevered brow.
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Date: 2009-09-09 07:28 pm (UTC)Taras folded his arms, leaning back. He stared at a spot on the floor, considering.
He wondered why Lasha had been so roundabout regarding what was on his mind. There was nothing queer about believing that a ghost had visited him.
"You said it yourself. She said those things to your father. Those things about you. Even if she meant them at the time, she probably realizes she was wrong now."
He shook his head.
"I don't know if dead people know more than we do. But if she had the time to think about it, then da, she'd regret saying that shit. And she'd want to make it up to you."
Taras levered himself out of his chair, again feeling a chill on his arms. He wondered if he should get a robe like Lasha's, which looked thick and soft, or if that wasn't manly enough for him.
He tended to the stove, which had been dying down. As he worked, he glanced over his shoulder at Ilarion.
"And let you know she she loves you. That's all she can do."
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Date: 2009-09-09 09:47 pm (UTC)"She was warning me, Taras," Ilarion said, finally. The words were flatly sounded.
He allowed that there was a kind of inherent love in that, or at least responsibility. Duty.
"Telling me not to follow my father's pattern."
His breath felt heavy.
"History was in danger of repeating itself."
no subject
Date: 2009-09-10 12:01 am (UTC)"She wouldn't have said it if she didn't think you would listen," he said, finally. "If she didn't think you were different than him."
That, he thought, maybe was the whole problem that Lasha had with it. It wasn't that Lasha was a bad man, which he readily admitted to and held as a point of pride. As he should.
It was the implication that Lasha was just like his father that seemed to gall him so much. Taras knew that Lasha feared it was true. Otherwise, it wouldn't have bothered him, and he have sneered and shrugged it off.
"Even if she was warning you, you already know better."
Taras turned his gaze toward Lasha, still frowning slightly.
"You wouldn't do something like that again...right?"
no subject
Date: 2009-09-10 07:59 am (UTC)"You mean, have I learned my lesson?" he asked, softly. "Has this suffering he inflicted taught me, like operant conditioning, about the nature of consequence?"
His gaze fell and his brow furrowed.
"Perhaps."
He frowned darkly.
"But Taras- how can I promise anything like that, without knowing the future, without context?"
Lasha's eyes were pale and lambent in the renewed firelight.
"Don't misunderstand me. I'll be mindful when it comes to Liadov from now on."
He shook his head.
"I can't lose him again."
He rose from the chair abruptly, drawing his robe around him, assuaging his mental discomfort in soft cashmere.
"I refuse to lose anything that is mine," he added, almost as an afterthought, his eyes settling heavily on Oleksei.
He eased down, reclining on the bed, keeping his gaze locked on Taras, penetrating and loaded.
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Date: 2009-09-10 09:15 am (UTC)His body was poised and his shoulders arched, and he could feel the swell of his pulse accelerate.
He sat there for a few seconds, watching him, taking in Lasha's long lean form, the confidence and grace, the drape of fine fabric against his skin. Then his eyes tracked up to meet Lasha's, and he relished the heated luster of his gaze.
It was not a challenge, and it was not a submission, but it was, clearly, desire.
Taras stood, all in one smooth motion.
He walked to the bed and stood at the foot of it, looming over Lasha, letting his anticipation and hunger build.
He wanted Lasha even more than he had before, and he wondered how that could be, how knowing a taste of something would make him thirst for it even more keenly.
Nothing had been sated, only honed.
His breath was quiet but slightly roughened in the semidark, his heart thrumming and senses alive.
Taras leaned down, letting his palms rest on either side of Lasha, positioning himself over him, not yet touching. His eyes were keen, focused with intent.
"You won't lose what's yours," he whispered.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-10 10:05 am (UTC)"Nor you," he said, after a moment, letting the words carry a touch of unspoken significance.
Self-absorbed as he was, it had eluded him, earlier, Oleksei's trepidation about returning to Leningrad. His odd questions, his furrowed brow, his conflicted eyes.
Lasha felt a small, cold thrill course through him from the proximity of Taras' brawn and steady, mismatched regard.
"Perenochevat'," he intoned, low, in a voice like cinders and ground glass.
He exhaled, slowly, letting the heat of his breath permeate the space between them.
"I'll grant you whatever you desire."
no subject
Date: 2009-09-10 07:46 pm (UTC)Taras breathed in deeply, drawing in Lasha's scent, all warm masculinity tinged with cognac, clean skin, salt musk.
The bed creaked slightly as he leaned closer.
"There's only one thing I want right now."
He reached between them and tugged open Lasha's robe, baring his smooth chest, and the dark, totemic lines Taras had inked on it.
Taras raised his eyes once more, to meet Lasha's.
"Let me adore you," he rumbled softly, and lowered his head, drawing his face to Lasha's neck, lips to his skin.
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Date: 2009-09-11 07:52 am (UTC)His hand reached for Taras' groin at once, reclaiming its former place.
He found Oleksei rigid, just as he'd been when they were interrupted, as if he'd never stopped being hard.
"What's this," he whispered. "Carrying a torch, are we?"
no subject
Date: 2009-09-11 08:33 am (UTC)Taras nuzzled at Ilarion's neck, half rough and half nice. Lasha rubbed his bulge possessively, with a firm and thorough hand.
" 'Serve me, adore me,' " he breathed, pausing to lick Lasha's skin.
His loins were aching with warm spikes of pleasure and he shifted slightly, drawing one knee between Lasha's legs, pressing their thighs together, feeling the warmth of Ilarion's body through layers of silk and cotton.
" 'Because you want to.' That's what you said."
Taras paused then, pulling back slightly to look down at Lasha. His gaze was heated and his breath quickened, and his pulse thrummed pleasurably in his chest.
"You like that fancy kind of talk, da?"
He knew Nika did.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-11 09:00 am (UTC)"Fancy talk," he murmured. "Is that what it is? I suppose. Formality is erotic, don't you think? It speaks of the classical reverence once afforded emotion and passion, of sentiments too variegated to express in mere casual parlance."
He paused, giving Oleksei's bulge a measured and sensuous clench of his fist.
"So yes, I'd say I like it."
Lasha tightened his stomach and leaned upward, pressing his chest to Oleksei's.
"But that's not all that I like, Taras."
He could feel the rasp of the Captain's stubble and the presence and warmth of his proximity.
His eyes narrowed as he took him in up close, his burden beast, his prized possession. Oleksei's body was hyper-real and dense like dark matter, occupying more than the space it claimed.
"Some things are better in the rough."
He paused, reconsidering.
"Or at least...polishing them is a process I savor."
no subject
Date: 2009-09-11 04:15 pm (UTC)"I like different things too. I like more things than I thought I did."
He wondered if he would have wanted to fuck Lasha in the Zone, or at least, a man like Lasha that he didn't know.
Taras thought so. Lasha was smart and spirited. He would have liked giving it to a fancy prick, and the alliance would have been beneficial to them both.
For a second, something resonated strangely with the way things actually had been like there, and the past and the present merged. After a moment he shook it off, and chose to let those thoughts slip away, refocusing on Lasha, which was not difficult.
He ran a hand down Lasha's flank, feeling the the smoothness of his skin, the softness. Taras let his hand curve around Ilarion's taut buttock, fingers sliding underneath the waistband of his silken pants.
"I like touching you."
Taras grasped Lasha's cock in his hand, feeling it respond to him. He stroked his hand along it, tip to base, going slow, lingering at the glans.
He paused for a second, looking down at Lasha, odd eyes serious.
"I know it's all right to like it. I didn't think that before."
no subject
Date: 2009-09-11 07:33 pm (UTC)Oleksei's hand on his prick was heavy and practiced, well beyond the little practice he'd had with Ilarion. He knew that had come from the colonies; Oleksei had even admitted it.
"Ironic. Many of the skills you learned in prison have transferred rather well to working for me."
He closed his eyes and arched against Taras's fist, feeling the shudders of sensation run down through him like water through the ornate gutters of the MVD building.
"Of course it's all right," Ilarion responded belatedly. "How can it not be right when nothing we do is wrong?"
Oleksei said it as if it had been a point of contention.
Ilarion supposed it had.
"I'm glad you've finally come to your senses about that."
His fingers pushed beneath the band of Oleksei's pants, reaching deep and grasping his length possessively.
"You like it hard, as I recall."
no subject
Date: 2009-09-11 09:40 pm (UTC)He arched his neck up, arching against Lasha's hand, shuddering down the muscular length of his body.
"I do. But I don't think slow would be bad, either."
Taras did like it hard. He liked full-body contact, frotting off, the struggle between men, muscle and sweat and ragged breathing against his ear. But there was something about Lasha that made Taras want something different. Maybe something more refined, as Ilarion would say.
He repositioned his grip on Lasha, keeping his strokes firm and building, not too rough, and not too fast.
"You like it to start off slow, so you can..."
Taras searched for the word.
"Savor it."