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taras_oleksei ([personal profile] taras_oleksei) wrote2009-08-05 02:51 pm

Evening

Taras 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."

[identity profile] taras-oleksei.livejournal.com 2009-08-12 09:17 am (UTC)(link)
Taras eyed Lasha. His face was close.

"Da, that's the voice I mean," he muttered.

He glanced away. Every time he breathed, he drew in Lasha's scent, subtly spiced and masculine.

That made it hard to concentrate. Taras frowned.

"I guess that...would be...something...different. For a change."

Taras spoke very slowly, pausing to let the words sit there, as if trying them out for the first time.

He grunted in the vague affirmative.

There had been a time when Taras would not have said anything of the sort to Lasha. That was when Taras had believed that a man who insisted that getting fucked in the ass was not queer was somehow not queer himself.

That was when Taras had not wanted to admit the things he wanted, even in his own head.

He drew his gaze back to Lasha's.

"If you like that...I'll try it. And if we don't like it, we can just get another girl instead."