FISSIONMAILED: Apartment complex

[majorbonerkiller]

Well Ivan certainly didn't remember leaving the door to his apartment wide open, just beckoning squatters to come shit on his carpet--or even worse, eat his food.

Not that they weren't all squatters here anyway. Ivan crouched down near the door frame, pulling out his tranquilizer gun. He peered over the threshold, and took a chance, hoping his dog was still here--and still alive.

"Galina! Here girl!"

When he heard the familiar patter and panting he sighed in relief, ruffling her ears when she was close enough, "Good girl." Curse himself for smiling at a time like this.

Slightly more confident now with his canine comrade, Ivan entered the dark apartment, keeping his footsteps quiet and his tranquilizer at the ready.

And he almost immediately tripped over his own dirty laundry, screaming in the process of mid-falling terror. Luckily his amazing acrobatic skills (catching himself on the dresser) came to the rescue.

Moving forward towards the center of the room Ivan could hear--breathing. He baited his breath, trying to hold back any instincts to just start shooting up the place. He was fueled by a sort of cocktail of terror and anger--how dare somebody come waltzing into his apartment thinking they own the goddamn place?!

He padded closer, towards the sounds of life--they must be on the couch, since he just knocked his knee on the coffee table and had to hiss in silent agony a moment before going on.

Finally steadying himself he located the perpetrator's head after several seconds (a whole minute of squinting) and pressed the muzzle of his gun against it, "Get up!"

Comments

[colonelcrotchgrab]

"You're not going to even have a Yevgeny to fuck your tiny white ass if I stay too long!" the older man snapped back.

[volginswaifu.livejournal.com]

Ivan raised an eyebrow, "Why? Whatever you had back home...doesn't effect you here."

[colonelcrotchgrab]

Volgin's ass was grazing the front door's knob.

"You want me to chance it?" His tone was laced with paranoia. The phone's clock was checked; it was not showing right. The numbers were flashing nonsense at him like an unset VCR. Volgin curled his lip and flipped it open. No service. "If I'm right and you're wrong, I will die."

Again.

[volginswaifu.livejournal.com]

Ivan smiled, confident.

He liked being in the know.

A hand pressed itself against Yevgeny's chest, followed by another, followed by a delicate white face.

"I'm sure. You can't die here," not forever, anyway.

[colonelcrotchgrab]

It was hard not to fall for that beautiful man. Incredibly hard. Volgin was trying to best not to melt at his touch; he had been very well conditioned to relax at his attentions when the pressure (the external stressful kind) approached his limits.

"You believe in an Afterlife?" the giant's voice was a distant drift. He rolled away the cigar's band and tossed it aside, tilting his head back. Raikov could feel his torso heave, on the cusp of hyperventilation; whatever was bothering him was bothering him.

[volginswaifu.livejournal.com]

Ivan looked up, then let his eyes drift back down in silent thought.

"If a place like this can exist...why not? Sure."

Thinking of death wasn't a pleasant thought--even here when he pushed it aside because of some grandiose loop in the system. Most of all, he didn't like where this conversation was going. Even if his answer had flimsy logic, it was enough for him.

His hands tightened a bit in the fabric of Volgin's shirt.

[colonelcrotchgrab]

"I've been there for almost half a century, Vanya."

Let that sink in. Whatever, whatever the Nexus was and is, it did not change the fact of Volgin's perspective that decades had passed (he was still realizing how many decades it had only been -- otherwise they had felt like centuries).

He felt those pale hands cling. He could almost feel the nails against his insulative second skin.

(The ex-GRU Colonel coldly steeled himself; his... his heart hurt. That was how he could describe it.

It was a pain he dreaded most of all.)

"There are terms to my continued living, is all."

[volginswaifu.livejournal.com]

"What? How old are you?" Was the only question Ivan could fathom at the moment, panicked almost, but trying to conceal it. "I--I mean before the...half century..."

He'd bother Yevgeny on the latter half of his admission later.

[colonelcrotchgrab]

Volgin thought on this for a moment. "Fifty-five, fifty-six. I am not sure. I feel about that much. I'm not ageless."

Large hands slowly closed around Raikov's. One was gloved, the other still bare. It was deceptively soft and warm, a consequence of his constant need for insulation.

[volginswaifu.livejournal.com]

"But...that's...," he swallowed, "1964..."

[colonelcrotchgrab]

"Yes?"

Volgin did not like where this conversation was going.

[volginswaifu.livejournal.com]

"But what about the Shagohod?" He said firmly.

[colonelcrotchgrab]

"I used it."

Volgin hesitated, narrowing his eyes, trying to keep himself confident, powerful. His gut was still twisting, he was not liking this conversation and its implications.

(Raikov was at his lap again, morose and stroking his erect cock.)

The old Colonel straightened himself, shuffled, made sure he was at his full height. Be vague, but truthful.

"What became of it, I do not know."

[volginswaifu.livejournal.com]

Ivan's lip quivered, "I came here--stripped down to my thong. That Yankee...bastard took my clothing. How...," and the emotion really started to pour out on his question; the urgency of the situation. What he had at stake.

"How long do I have?"

[colonelcrotchgrab]

Volgin recalled the events too well.

He took a deep breath.

"In what respect."

[volginswaifu.livejournal.com]

"To stop you," his eyes gleamed with what threads of desperate hope he could cling on to.

[colonelcrotchgrab]

"Now, or then."

[volginswaifu.livejournal.com]

"Then..."

[colonelcrotchgrab]

Volgin closed his eyes.

"... I should have killed him."

[volginswaifu.livejournal.com]

"When--when did you have the chance? I-If...Zhenya...it doesn't matter. I'll do...something...," Ivan pressed his face numbly against Volgin's chest again, like before.

There had to be something he could do. He just had no idea what.

[colonelcrotchgrab]

The bare hand was gently caressing that white head of hair, slow motions against the strands in soothing strokes. Raikov could feel his warm breath purr along his scalp, the leaning of his torso to nuzzle him.

"Vanya... Vanya... My dearest Vanya. It's too late now."

His voice was hushed, muffled. Raikov could feel pain bleed along the edge of his words, for all of his strength, passion, and ferocity.

"It's been too late for decades. The Cold War is over. The Soviet Union has fallen.

"You were the last thing I heard before I died. It was raining, and you held me."

[volginswaifu.livejournal.com]

"N-not for me! Back home, Zhenya...it hasn't happened yet," he inhaled, holding back a sob.

"I wish...," he leant into the comfort of the other man, mumbling quietly his confessions. "That I could help you too, but I can't."

His fingers curled again and uncurled, grasping at trains of thought. Instead of that Ivan gave up on words and wrapped his arms around Volgin's torso in a weak embrace. (But in no way did it lack feeling.)

Tears streamed freely down his face.

[colonelcrotchgrab]

"You can't."

Volgin's tone was harsh, he forced that harshness. Had to be strong for the both of them. Can't dwell on the past. Can't change the past. He could never take back all that he lost, not in his lifetime. He was aging, weakening from his peak and fading fast from what was left of his prime. He could never rebuild his Terrible City with what he had left.

He would die (again) a bitter man, unable to stop dwelling on it.

His hold on Raikov tightened. The younger man's face was pressed into that coarse, dull sweater, the hard, well-built pectorals underneath.

"You're all I have left, Ivan!"

(Don't cry.)

The Raikov at the Academy had recalled what happened to him, after his death. The recall made him a shivering heap, a shattered man quivering in his embrace: Left to his men, left to their appetites and desires, circling the man fallen from grace, ganging up on him before marring the snowy perfection he so treasured. Wolves. Wolves not unlike the ones he had once been tasked to cull.

This Ivan he now held was a perfect, clean Ivan, free of desecration.

The ungloved hand tried to slide beneath Ivan's clothing, to feel that back, to once again stroke the smooth skin. He felt it that other night, on that chair, the whole, unmarked person that was his beautiful Raidenovich. Again. He was pure and whole again.

(Don't cry, you simpering idiot!)

[volginswaifu.livejournal.com]

Ivan knitted his hands into that sweater like a life raft.

But that wasn't good enough--he needed to comfort. Ran his hand up and down Volgin's back in languid motions; soothing him, and himself.

Was it really so impossible to save his Volgin back home? He wasn't even sure if he could make it back home.

"I can change it," he muttered in his fruitless efforts, sniveling like a child who couldn't get his way.

His grip tightened again, hand pausing at what seemed like such a...desperate thing to say--Ivan smiled sadly.

"...And I'm not going anywhere, Zhenya," he kissed whatever was closest. "I'm right here."

[colonelcrotchgrab]

These were familiar motions. The curl, the embrace around Raikov was defensive, maybe the smaller of the two Soviets would have recognized it, but it was relaxing. His hold was still tight, still desperate, but his overwhelming drive to protect was diminishing, stressed and heightened since the American's assault on the silver-haired Soviet decades ago.

(He did not slice his throat. He was in the locker, still alive. Still breathing. Intact. A bruise or three, but intact.)

He... ...

He slowly pulled away.

"I have to be strong for you." His voice cracked, low. It was getting harder to speak. "I can't be weak like this. I'm not this weak."

Volgin was looking towards the wall, a trembling shimmer glazing his eyes.