Firing Range [February 20, 1964, 1:14 pm]

[leshovik.livejournal.com]

They stepped out of the pathologist's outbuilding and into the crisp and cold afternoon air, which held the weighted promise of snow.

Leshovik liked that. It felt cleansing.

He glanced at Aryol, who was looking at him with an expression Leshovik hadn't seen in a long time, like the way he used to look at him when they first met, back when Aryol thought he was the greatest guy in the world.

That was before Aryol had gotten to know him.

Then Leshovik hadn't seen that expression anymore.

But the way Aryol looked at him now was like that, the way he'd caught Aryol looking at Lynx a couple of times. Aryol had a lightness to his features, bright soft eyes and a sunny smile that was all for him.

Aryol stepped close, and slipped an arm around Leshovik's waist, nuzzling his face against Leshovik's temple before pulling away. The contact was as brief as it was tender and impulsive, and it made Leshovik feel ridiculously warm.

"You made him happy," Aryol told him, still smiling. "That was nice."

Leshovik reached out, and tousled Aryol's hair fondly. "Yeah, well, don't tell anyone. I don't want to ruin my reputation for being a dickhole."

Aryol laughed.

Leshovik still had no fucking idea what was going on with Lynx, but it didn't matter as much now, not when the man had looked him in the eye and tacitly admitted that yes, there was something. Something personal, important enough to make him torture a man with sharp, ruthless efficiency. Something greater than a mere assignment.

Before that, the lie had been sitting hard and cold between them, like bringing a rifle to bed.

Leshovik looked around, and spotted Niotkuda, who leaned casually against the side of the building, smiling, but not at them, looking like he'd been laughing to himself. Codec, maybe. Leshovik hailed him, and they walked over.

Niotkuda pushed himself away from the wall with the lazy grace of a natural athlete. Leshovik admired the smooth, indolent motion briefly, finding that it really did remind him of the way Lynx moved.

He blinked, and thought that there was something sort of fucked up about all of this, though he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"Sorry about that," Leshovik said, gesturing back at the outbuilding apologetically. "Took longer than I thought."

Comments

[andrei-isaev.livejournal.com]

"Khui, Irinarhov, it can't be that important," said Isaev, innocuous and deliberately wide eyed. "This is sniping, after all. Your raison d'etre!"

Andrei had every intention of taking care of Kasya's business thoroughly and well at the first opportune moment, but in the meantime, teasing him was almost as irresistable as fucking him.

The more he teased, the more the apprehension mounted between them, and when they finally found themselves alone, the cradle would not only rock, it would come crashing down.

Isaev gave Kassian a surreptitious wink, infinitely miscreant, and strolled down the row of lanes, crossing lazily to lean against the wall behind the cubicle partition Viktor had chosen to inhabit.

"All right," Isaev said, "Let's see this thing in action. Impress me, comrade."

He saw Kasya hanging back, as Aryol started toward them.

"Come on, Captain Wildoat," he called, "don't you want to see Viktor handle his long, slick, shiny weapon? It's been eight long years."

[leshovik.livejournal.com]

Leshovik's mouth flew open, and he spun around to gape at Niotkuda, utterly shocked.

He couldn't believe that the man would say something so outrageous, especially about such a sensitive subject. Niotkuda looked wholly unrepentant, and even Aryol was laughing, but when Viktor pivoted to look at Kasya, he at, least, had the grace to avert his gaze, though after a second, Leshovik realized that Kasya's shoulders were shaking, silently.

Fuming, Leshovik turned away.

Well, he understood that. Obviously Niotkuda wanted to see if he could rattle him, and spoil his shot. He didn't know about Niotkuda, but Aryol and Kasya, at least, should have known better. He was a sniper. Handling pressure was his forte. He bent down in fierce concentration, and began to adjust his rifle.

He thought about the anecdote Niotkuda had related earlier, about Kasya spelling out "izvinit" on a target. Leshovik resisted the urge to ask how far out he'd been when he'd done it. Instead, he considered the the things that he could write.

Yob tvoyu mat' reflected his sentiments nicely about right now, but it was a little long.

Ot'ebis ot menya, ty mne ostohuyel was even better, but suffered from the same problem.

Leshovik stared though the scope of his rifle as he continued to make adjustments, eyeing the distant target. With Kasya and Niotkuda staring at him, he couldn't afford to make a mistake, and even though he was still well within the Dragunov's maximum range, he didn't want to risk it.

On the other hand, he didn't want to make it too easy. That would be like admitting he couldn't do it.

He lingered, buying time finessing his rifle, thinking furiously, trying to decide.

[andrei-isaev.livejournal.com]

"Kasya doesn't usually take this long in setting up a shot," observed Isaev, without affect. "This Dragunov must be much more complicated the vintova moskina, eh?"

He watched Leshovik carefully caressing the rifle, moment by moment, letting out a low whistle after a while.

"Khui, are you going to shoot it or make love to it, comrade? Stop touching it like that, or you'll make me go stiff."

Isaev laughed.

"Fuck, I love snipers."

[leshovik.livejournal.com]

Head still bent over his rifle, Leshovik scowled as Niotkuda's words made his loins twitch. So Niotkuda thought it funny to try to distract him with dirty talk, did he? Leshovik could even hear Aryol laughing.

That was fine. He would show them.

In the next moment, he suddenly realized, with perfect clarity, what he should inscribe into the target in bullets.

It would take his full magazine, all ten shots. For a few seconds he wondered at the wisdom of wasting the precious steel-jacketed ammo on proving a point, but he had plenty of ammo, and if he did his job right, he really only needed one more bullet.

Without warning, or another moment wasted, he pulled the trigger, then again, then again, the semi-automatic nature of the SVD making the fluid, consecutive shots possible with no need to manually operate the bolt to release another cartridge.

When he had fired off all ten shots, he eased back, and tossed a smug look over his shoulder in Niotkuda's direction. Slinging his rifle back, Leshovik signaled for the target to come forward, and hoped to Christ he'd done it right.

It took a long time to make its way up the track, and he stepped forward to intercept it, blocking the view with his body until he had a chance to look at it first.

Narrowly, he looked over the paper.

Not bad, given the distance.

Turning around to his audience, he held up his creation: five bullet holes forming more or less a circle, and within that, two more to represent eyes, then the final three to make a downturned mouth.

Aryol laughed when he saw it, eyes lit, mouth curved up, smile radiant. It had been a while since Leshovik had been the cause of that expression, and it made him feel warm. A moment later, Aryol was bounding forward and slipping over the low wall, gently pushing the target down with one hand, bringing the other around the back of Leshovik's neck and leaning forward to bring their mouths together in a hard, spontaneous kiss.

It hit him like a bullet, and Leshovik found himself unresisting, though in a vague part of his mind, he thought he should have done something. Still, they were relatively safe from observation here, save Kasya and Niotkuda, of course, but Leshovik figured he had already crossed as many boundaries as there were to cross, with them.

Dimly, he supposed it also might be bad form to kiss Aryol in front of Kasya, given the conclusion they seemed to have reached, though Viktor still wasn't sure he believed it. But as long as Kasya believed it, it made this dangerous in a way he found fucked up but incredibly arousing.

Finally, Aryol broke it off and pulled back, leaving Leshovik breathless, though he was aware of Kasya and Niotkuda watching. Leshovik gathered his presence of mind enough to hold out the target to Aryol.

"Here," he said, and paused to glance vindictively at Niotkuda, but then registered peripherally that Kasya was staring.

He looked at Kasya, whose expression was one of shock, and slowly, Leshovik realized with dawning horror that Kasya hadn't known he and Aryol were fucking.

[andrei-isaev.livejournal.com]

Isaev cringed, slightly, and looked down, unable to repress a slight groan at the unwitting faux pas.

He'd suspected.

He hadn't been certain. After all, Leshovik might have been involved with Lynx. It seemed likely.

But what other reason was there to have a spotter who was the spitting image of your ex-lover, if not that.

Even if it was true that they were lovers, Andrei had counted on Leshovik's upright, uptight persona and aloofness to avoid confirming anything in front of other mens' eyes.

But he'd been thoroughly trumped. Confirmation before his very eyes, and an utter shock to Kasya's, he thought, not wanting to meet his comrade's face just yet.

But a glance at Viktor revealed an equally stricken face to the one he would have imagined on Irinarhov.

As if Viktor was also in possession of a sobering and unsettling epiphany.

Isaev turned abruptly to Kassian, with a swift swing of his hair, rubbing his temples.

"...and....that's the surprise I wasn't planning to give you."

Kasya's face was so bereft of expression as to seem suspended in amber.

What he was thinking, for once Isaev could not contrive to guess.

[capt-kasya.livejournal.com]

Kassian slowly peeled his gaze away from Vitya and Aryol, to look at Isaev.

He wondered if the signs had been there before, and he'd just been blind to them. No. He'd barely known Aryol all of fifteen minutes. There hadn't been anything to see.

But he should have known.

He looked at Isaev, face slack at first, then he shook himself to regain his focus.

"You knew?" he asked, in an undertone, frowning slightly, wondering how that could be. Maybe there had been some other overt gesture of affection, earlier, or something that Isaev had noticed, but hadn't had the chance to pass along.

Of course Vitya would be fucking his spotter, and the fact that Aryol not only looked like Kassian, he resembled him so closely that Kassian was very nearly fully convinced that Aryol could actually be his son probably only made it that much better for Viktor, who was a sicker fuck than Kassian had realized.

Is this what it had come to? Kassian had refused to to with Vitya, and so Vitya had gotten the next best thing?

Kassian blinked, shaking his head to clear it.

"I...suppose he's a man. Able to make his own decisions," Kassian, said, slowly.

He glanced back at the pair.

Vitya looked away, but Aryol was grinning, holding up the target and laughing, flush with pleasure and clearly thrilled by Vitya's gift, and to Kassian's narrow gaze, very much in love.

Kassian remembered what it had been like to love Viktor Sidorov. In hindsight, equal parts joy and pain, even in the good times. When it was bad...

He recalled what Aryol had said to him earlier: It's not easy sometimes. God, he knew that.

Kassian looked back at Isaev, who was watching him, concern at the forefront of his clouded grey eyes.

"I'm all right," he said, with a deep sigh. "I just...wasn't expecting that."

Another frown creased his forehead, and deepened the lines in his face. "I hope he treats him all right."

[leshovik.livejournal.com]

Leshovik watched Kasya and Niotkuda surreptitiously.

Kasya was muttering to his lover. Probably telling him to snap Leshovik's neck.

It wasn't like he had planned this, or had even known -

No. That was still crazy. Leshovik didn't believe it, no matter how much they looked alike. Kaysa was probably going to be angry anyway, but that was just too bad. It really wasn't any of his business who Viktor fucked.

Purposefully, he turned his gaze away.

Aryol was looking at him, a small, slow smile playing at one corner of his mouth, his eyes dark and rich, like polished wood. Right then, he looked older, like he'd somehow gained a few years since they'd arrived.

Maybe it wasn't just experience, but rather, knowledge, Viktor thought. Meeting Kasya had solidified something for Aryol. Given him a point of origin. Leshovik couldn't imagine what it was like to not have grown up with a family, but that was Aryol's reality.

Leshovik reached out, at first intending to ruffle an affectionate hand through Aryol's hair, like he did when he was in a good mood, but at the last moment, he rested his hand on Aryol's shoulder, instead.

"Remind me to tell you about my father, someday," Leshovik said.

Aryol's eyes widened.

"Really?"

Viktor nodded. "Yeah."

He didn't know what prompted him to offer. Something about Aryol meeting Kasya, maybe, and this whole business about Kasya being Aryol's father.

Something about not wanting to lose Aryol to Kasya, the same way he'd lost a piece of himself.

But Aryol was smiling at him now, wide and warm, with that look that made Viktor feel like greatest guy in the world again.

[andrei-isaev.livejournal.com]

Andrei frowned, and the expression took some time to steep, developing onto his face with a graven solemnity, but not marring its basal structure by much.

His smile was a constant flash phenomenon, but his frown was a slowly gathering twilight. It was rare, and transient, and not often observed.

"I didn't know," he said.

No, he hadn't known. But it just seemed to follow, didn't it.

And now Aryol was cavorting like a puppy at the feet of its master. Andrei half wondered if Viktor carried Aryol's still beating heart in his ammo satchel, like a huntsman in a dark fairytale.

A talisman.

"So he has a piece of you now," Isaev reflected, tonelessly. "Whether or not he chooses to believe it. Maybe he prefers not to believe it."

His jaw lifted.

"But I believe it. He's your son, Irinarhov. Blood cuts the same cloth. If you saw my brother, you'd know him for mine. Or vice versa. Apples and trees, but not apples and oranges, Kassian Dmitrivich."

Andrei shook his head.

For someone with the eyes of a raptor, Aryol had the attention span of a crow. He had already forgotten the novelty of possibly seeing his only fleshly relative, as soon as Viktor had waved a shiny object.

Callow, shallow and young. He knew the type. Disenfranchised, eye taken with every older man whose path he crossed, searching in vain for a father figure unknown- and unable to change his modus, even now that he'd beheld the missing link to his life's broken chain.

Did Aryol not wonder what Kassian had been to Viktor? Did it not strike him at all that this man might well have been his father's lover? Did it not give him pause? At least pause before slavering over him unexamined?

"Perhaps I was wrong to waste your time, comrade Kasya," Isaev said, clearly. "It must be a coincidence. Upon reflection, I do not see your...character."

He clapped his hands together briefly and shoved them into his coat.

"What say you?"

[capt-kasya.livejournal.com]

Kassian frowned, slowly, and followed Isaev's gaze toward Aryol, who was smiling and looking at Vitya.

Aryol looked happy, Kassian thought. He smiled so easily, like it was effortless, like doing it cost him nothing.

Kassian turned back to Isaev. He'd heard a particular low, chilly note in Isaev's voice, the one that usually preceded him pulling away in some way, distancing himself from Kassian.

Kassian had come to regard that note with a bit of dread.

It hurt when Isaev retreated from him, especially when it was so hard to understand what he'd done to trigger it.

He searched the winter-grey of Isaev's eyes with a slow and steady look, searching carefully.

"I don't know if it's true or not. But I do know he's a different person," Kassian said. "I am who I am because of the war, and because of my father, and a lot of different things. His experiences aren't the same."

He paused, then reached out to brush the lightest of thumbstrokes across Isaev's hand, like he'd done the very first day they'd met.

The touch was careful, cautious, a testing of the waters, trying to tell where Isaev stood with this. For Isaev to affirm it in one breath and deny it the next meant there was something that had turned cold in the space of a moment, and had caused warm waters to chill.

[andrei-isaev.livejournal.com]

Andrei turned and caught Irinarhov's wrist, with a minimal motion- swift and lightly committed, but his grasp firm and reforming.

Reassuring.

"Maybe it doesn't matter if it's true or not," Isaev said, voice flatly unmodulated, eyes artless as he gave Irinarhov leave to take his unstudied measure. "Maybe that's where I misapprehended matters."

He had been uncertain whether to take Aryol as a peer or a junior, but now he found himself unlikely to take him as anything at all. He wasn't sure the fickle little prick deserved his consideration beyond this introduction.

He believed Aryol was the blood of Kasya's loins, wouldn't even question it. But whether he was worthy of being a son to his lover-

Isaev's eyes narrowed uncharacteristically.

No, he wasn't seeing it as clearly now. Not in the sense that Andrei called family. Blood was epoxy between he and Ilarion. Not a curiosity- not a precious lapdog he would squeal over, examine and discard like a capricious whore.

Aryol seems to be his mother's son, thought the unkind, unmoderated corner of Isaev's mind.

Kasya, of course, could do as he would. Isaev had done his part in unifying silences.

"Do you know," he said coolly, "blood can just as easily run down gutters."

He paused, raising his eyes.

"As your wasted progeny runs rivulets down my thighs, your unrealized blood pools upon my stomach. But it isn't wasted on me, comrade."

[capt-kasya.livejournal.com]

Kassian met and held Isaev's gaze.

The provocative words stirred his blood, as they always did, quickening his pulse and warming his loins, bringing him back to the point before he'd met Aryol, when Isaev had been manhandling him like a prisoner of war.

His cock had flagged, turned half-hard in his distraction, but now, inflamed, it was like iron from the forge.

That was all it took, these days. Words alone could arouse him. Isaev's words, words about sex, or killing, or both, the two now so inexorably intertwined in his mind when it came to Isaev that either would do it.

Because he knew Isaev's mind and intent, his body filled in the rest.

There was more to this, though, he sensed. The chill in Isaev's voice had not been directed at him, but rather, the situation. Aryol and Vitya, and this encroachment into their lives. He still didn't understand the change in Isaev's weather, but they could discuss it later.

There were things they needed to say to each other now that didn't involve words, but were yet far deeper than simple lust, emotional needs that were met through a more primal form of communication.

Still holding Isaev's gaze, he nodded, once, and slowly.

"Now it's all for you," he murmured, softly.

Kassian held Isaev's eyes a beat, then pulled his gaze away, looking back to where Vitya and Aryol stood.

"We're going to go now," he called to them, and both of them looked up. "There's something we have to take care of."

Vitya nodded, but Aryol slipped over the barricade again and walked back up to him, stopping closer than where a casual comrade stood, but not not so close as a lover. A middle distance that Kassian found not unacceptable.

"That's okay," Aryol said, with an easy grin that wasn't Kassian's, but neither was it Viktor's. Something of his very own, Kassian supposed, and wondered how it had come about, and how he'd lived, all these years, but those were questions for another time.

"We have something we have to take care of too," Aryol continued, grin turned more wicked, tilting his head back at Vitya in a way that left little doubt as to what he meant.

Briefly, Kassian looked back at Vitya and almost felt like smirking, but Vitya was looking so mortified, Kassian didn't have the heart.

He turned his gaze back to Aryol, and nodded silently, though with a faint curve of his lips, to show he understood.

Aryol laughed, but then his expression turned more earnest. "So, will I, I mean, can we, well, will you be here again, later?"

Kassian nodded. "I'm here every day."

Aryol's smile widened.

For someone with their mutual complexion - dusky olive-toned skin, black hair, dark eyes - Aryol seemed bright to Kassian, like sunlight glinting off stone.

"That'd be great! And maybe you can show me some things, and if you want, you can shoot my Dragunov."

Kassian blinked at that last, feeling uncertain, though this wasn't the time to discuss it.

He simply nodded. "Sounds good. See you then," he said.

"Okay," Aryol said, then looked at Isaev too. "See you later!"

Kassian watched for a moment as Aryol bounded back to Vitya, then turned to look at Isaev. "Come on. Let's get my rifle, and go."

[andrei-isaev.livejournal.com]

"Fine by me," remarked Isaev, strolling away down the lanes.

He tossed his hair out of his eyes, looking back at Aryol.

"I'll try not to swallow too many of your siblings," he drawled, coolly.

"I'm more of an Apollo than a Cronos, anyway."

Too bad there was no Grecian analogue for the kind of man who fucked his father's lover.

Andrei snorted and struck his boot heel on the concrete.

It would probably be wasted anyway.

His eyes narrowed.

"Lets go spill some brethren."

[eyes-adrift.livejournal.com]

Aryol's dark brows slanted low as he watched them walk away.

He wondered at the breezy, offhand chill he'd caught in Niotkuda's tone.

It was strange. He'd liked Niotkuda immediately, and thought Kasya's lover had liked him in turn, but the sudden ice in Niotkuda's voice went beyond mere teasing.

It hurt, like a sudden punch, and his lip curled, faintly.

"Don't choke," he called after Niotkuda, then turned away, back to Leshovik, who was watching him, blue eyes shadowed by the weight of a frown.

Aryol waited until they were out of earshot, then shook his head. "What was his problem?"

Leshovik snorted. "I don't think they like us very much."

"Speak for yourself."

Kasya had liked him just fine, Aryol thought. The older man had been a little cautious, as if hesitant to get too close, but not unkind because of it. That was all right.

They had time, now.

"He's not your father, you know," Leshovik said quietly, and that made Aryol laugh.

"He's my father."

"You don't know that."

Aryol looked at Leshovik, and smiled slowly, though one side of his mouth curled. "I do know it, actually."

He couldn't explain to Leshovik how he knew, not without having to explain a lot of other things he wasn't supposed to talk about, not even to his partner.

But the knowledge rested there where he could feel it, carefully tucked away in the back of Aryol's mind like a relic from the war found in the woods by a small boy, and brought home to keep in a box under his bed with other precious things. An accidental discovery, but no less treasured.

Leshovik shook his head.

"You're deluding yourself, Aryol. You're seeing what you want to see. You think he's your father. You think he's a good man. He's neither."

Aryol's jaw tightened, and he rounded on Leshovik, eyes flashing.

"Don't say that about him."

"You don't know him like I do."

Leshovik was glaring back at him, sharp features tight, body coiled and shoulders tucked like a pugilist spoiling for a fight.

Aryol raised his chin.

"What'd you do to him, anyway? Why didn't it work out? Were you a fucking asshole? Did he leave you?"

Leshovik flinched as if Aryol had hit him, and Aryol almost felt bad, but a sharp, vindictive part of him knew Leshovik deserved it.

Leshovik's cheekbones went as sharp as cut glass and just as pale.

"Don't," he snarled, "ask me what I did to Kasya. Ask me what he did to me."

Leshovik was shaking, Aryol realized, every muscle tense, vibrating like a bowstring held taut too long.

Aryol's gaze flicked down.

And hard. Predictably, conflict had made Leshovik stiff again, the bulge of his erection visible against the crotch of his fatigues.

It made Aryol hard in turn, to see that, to feel Leshovik's arousal rippling off him in palpable waves.

Aryol lifted his gaze.

"Let's fuck," he said, voice soft, but lightly goading.

Leshovik swallowed, and looked away.

"I don't want to fuck," he said quietly, after a moment, but Aryol laughed.

"You always want to fuck, Viktor. Come on."

Aryol carefully rolled up the target Leshovik had made for him, and tucked it under his arm.

He adjusted the strap of his rifle, then began to walk away, heading back to the quarters they'd been assigned.

After a moment or two, Leshovik followed.