Results [Feb 23, 2:03 pm]

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

"Strange," Rakitin murmured.

The body was spread out on the autopsy table beside him. Another young, blond man, this one whole, but festooned with bright blood patterns on nearly unmarked skin. Leopardus pardalis, as he had thought, and a hastily purloined book on zoology had confirmed.

"This blood," he said. "It comes from several sources. What prints I can get are various, too."

He look a long look at the sample he had been testing, then glanced at Liadov.

"There was a team involved in this."

His eyes swept over the results.

"There's light bruising along the arms and torso. Not enough to have been a major fight. And..."

He went over to the corpse, lying as if waiting for news worth awakening to hear.

"Look."

Rakitin lifted the wrist to show the faint lines across it.

"Ligature marks."

Comments

[nikanor-liadov.livejournal.com]

Nika's eyebrows coved gently.

"Pardon? I don't understand," he said, bemused. ''There's no need to apologize. I know you were drunk, Polya. We both were."

He paused, smiling slightly.

"That's why I didn't let you suck me off, Lieutenant. It wouldn't have been professional. I don't treat my colleagues like that."

Nika gave a slight upward nod.

"I don't treat my friends like that either."

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

Relief suffused Rakitin's smile.

That hadn't been so bad.

That's why.

Of all the reasons.

"I'm glad you understand," Polya said, with subdued sincerity. "I should know better than to try to use a friend that way."

He looked down into the counter's reflective surface. The effect was silvery and distorted, but recognizeable.

"I'm just beginning to realize that."

It was as though Polya had set down an awkward, heavy object, after finally remembering that the only reason he carried it was habit.

Absently he added, "The offer still stands, you know."

[nikanor-liadov.livejournal.com]

Nika tilted his head, and looked at him carefully.

"Why?" he asked, after a moment, resting his chin in his hand.

"Why do you want to do that? With me?"

It was an artless, straightforward question.

He paused, delicately.

"Do you..."

Another pause.

"Do you know what I do to my lovers, Lieutenant?"

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

Polya was laughing, softly, honestly.

"Ah, well. I didn't really think I could shock you the same way twice. It was worth the try."

His pale eyebrows arched, the wry humor in his eyes offset by a drop of mellifluous earnestness.

"I know you have someone, Nikasha. I wouldn't try to interfere with that. But, as for why I offered in the first place..."

Rakitin lifted his shoulders, a gesture that covered rather a lot of ground.

"Honestly? You're intelligent, interesting, kind, and handsome. I like you, Nika."

He grinned lopsidedly.

"Even when you're being a bastard."

"Is that really so strange?"

Polya leaned forward, resting long hands flat on the countertop.

"Then tell me. What do you do to your lovers, Major? What is it that makes you so terrible?"

[nikanor-liadov.livejournal.com]

Nika smiled obscurely.

"Let's show some respect for the dead and his ligature marks," he said, only half wryly.

He straightened.

"Let's just say I like to control my environment."

He shrugged.

"Now isn't the time and place to get into that. My pathologies will long be intact for interrogation, Lieutenant, at your leisure if you so desire. But we need to interrogate the Ocelot squad now, before any collusion occurs."

He paused.

"And...Isaev. We'll need to question him."

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

"All right," Ippolit said.

He gave Nika a significant look. Now his curiosity had been stirred.

"But I'll hold you to that."

[nikanor-liadov.livejournal.com]

Liadov sighed, resigned.

"I have a feeling you will."

Not that he could blame Rakitin. Everyone loved a good story of aberrant psychology. Especially, he suspected, a pathologist.

"I suppose I owe you anyway. For Moscow."

That would buy him time to brace Andrusha and figure out exactly what the hell he'd been doing that night, and how to avert a crisis.

The real crisis would be if Leningrad got word, because then Magnum Frater would come. That was the last thing Nika or Groznyj Grad needed.

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

"You don't owe me anything," Polya said quietly.

Abrubtly, he pulled out of the momentary solemnity.

"Come on," he teased, giving Nika a light elbow in the side. "It can't be that bad."

He found himself lightened considerably, just from having the subject addressed, and not lingering in the back of his mind, emitting unpleasant plaintive growls. So that sort of thing could be civilized.

The concept of someone not despising or disregarding him had gone from eliciting frightened disbelief to pleasant surprise.

Odd, that.

"Anyway. Things to do, people to interrogate. Will we be taking on the Ocelots as a mob? There's something eerie about that many balaclava'd blonds. Like they all sprang in a squad from the head of Zeus."

[nikanor-liadov.livejournal.com]

Liadov nodded, slowly.

"Gather your findings, if you haven't already. We'll need to use a the biggest conference room we can find, at least for the general inquest. We'll mark out specific participants as we progress and question them more thoroughly."

Nika brooded for a moment, then tuned his codec.

"I'll call Major Ocelot."