Mess, cont

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

Rakitin stared at Liadov, his stomach clenched into a ball of ice.

Slowly, as he studied Nika's expression, he realized something.

Someone was striking derision and a wall of cold rejection, someone was where they weren't wanted, and it wasn't Polya.

How strange.

In the wash of relief and something else (acceptance? No, that was absurd), he felt an undercurrent of sympathy for the supply captain.

For the first time, it occured to him that he could play along.

Polya looked met Utrov's eyes and smiled a little, shyly.

The secret was shared, after all.

"You know, I think he does."

Comments

[eyes-adrift.livejournal.com]

Aryol stared at Utrov for a moment.

Then he laughed, once.

He couldn't quite believe the man's audacity, but then again, there were all kinds.

Aryol turned to the MVD major, shaking his head.

"It sounds to me like he just propositioned you, comrade major."

Though he enjoyed the irony, Aryol kept it from his tone.

"Muzhelostvo's still a crime," he said, voice downy and dark.

"...isn't it?"

[nikanor-liadov.livejournal.com]

"Oh yes," said Nika, softly. "Absolutely."

His fingertips tattooed a slow rhythm on the tabletop.

"Very much illegal, and as such, foolish to throw around lightly."

He was actually quietly unsettled by Utrov's cavalier overture, jest or not. It was disquieting, to hear a countryman speak such dangerous words, in front of unknown men, after having been on base for less than an afternoon.

"But stupidity isn't a crime. Sodomy is."

Discretion in matters like that was indigenous to every Russian's bones- and especially to the bones of those that indulged.

There was no way Utrov could know of the strangely tolerant place he'd only just landed- for all intents and purposes, a remote outpost offered even less assurance than Moscow, with its parks and underground anonymous pleasures.

Utrov also could not possibly know that Liadov was inclined that way- in fact, the ring on his finger suggested well otherwise.

So why would a stranger even dare to speak of sodomy and unnatural acts to an officer of the Interior Ministry?

More so, what could possibly lead him to do so in the presence of more than one person? Such assignations resolved themselves in intimate dual discourses, not dinner parties.

Liadov frowned, the expression etching deeper between his sullen lips.

"You are slandering the MVD, Captain, in implying that I am a sodomite."

[utrov.livejournal.com]

"Relax," Utrov said carelessly. "I was no more serious than you were, when you suggested I wanted to fuck your funny little friend there."

He motioned with one hand, casting something invisible away.

"What fool would have enough of a death wish to propostition someone holding a stack of invitations North? Probably with very pretty calligraphy, too."

It wasn't guaranteed, even there. Just likely. Never so easy.

He regarded the sour-faced blond, insousience in his eyes.

"You look like handing those out is the most fun you ever get."

[nikanor-liadov.livejournal.com]

"Possibly the same kind of fool who would broach that manner of joke," Nika replied.

A sardonic comment of that kind might be made by a policeman to a citizen, because the standards of the State were understood- there was no misconstruing his intentions as anything but cynical. But a citizen speaking the same to a secret policeman was frankly beyond the boundaries of sanity.

And that was the fundamental disconnect, he thought, with this man. He apparently had no concept of the world he was living in. Every sentence out of his mouth was enough to get him hung up by his thumbs- but he seemed oblivious to that, as if he believed this were an open society, with free speech.

As if words were protected, and the government needed an actual reason to lock him up and throw away the key.

Gradually, Liadov's irritation was commuted to vague pity.

He wondered how many people had suffered the price for this man's lack of awareness.

It wasn't worth his time to engage this man, on any level. Liadov wasn't here to arrest administrative officers, or take vindictive actions on insignificant citizens simply because he could. He was here to solve a nasty problem.

Nika's eyes took a final glance over the Captain's face. Soft, too-long mouth with undefined edges. Odd. His eyes were so flat and brown, it looked like he had no pupils.

"I rather doubt we have the same idea of fun," he remarked, succinctly.

[eyes-adrift.livejournal.com]

Politely, Aryol wiped his mouth with a napkin.

"On that note," he said, and gathered the remains of his meal on his tray, "I think I should be going."

Aryol stood up.

"Major, Lieutenant."

He paused.

"Captain."

He glanced to each man in turn, not letting his gaze linger any longer on the major than the other two, even though he wanted to catch the MVD man's eye, share a moment of irony.

But there was no need to be obvious, especially given the slant of the conversation they'd just had.

Aryol had the feeling that the major would pick up on his meaning, regardless.

Instead, he offered a fleeting smile to those still seated.

"I'll see you later, I'm sure, comrades."

One of those comrades, he'd see quite soon, he was certain.

[utrov.livejournal.com]

Utrov couldn't have said what it was about this prick that got under his skin. Usually he could smooth over anybody, no matter how prickly.

Used to be. Before he'd started getting in fights that he could never remember the cause for. Before he'd started getting in the face of anybody who looked like they'd give back.

Cause and effect, Borya would have called that.

Maybe it was just that cold-eyed look, like Utrov was something stuck to the bottom of his boot that he could reach down and flick away.

And he didn't do it.

Utrov had handed the bastard enough ammunition to off him a dozen times over. Practically primed the fucking pistol.

Why was he holding back now?

Blue blood and fucking blue balls.

"Now that I think of it," Utrov said, voice gone cold at the core, "I do know men like you."

There was a kind of truth that was so simple you never believed it until you found it out for yourself. Like how anger could make anything easy.

When the blast radius was clear, you kept lighting the fuse.

"They wave around their reputation and like threats better than action. They parcel out the dirty work and keep their own hands soft and clean."

[nikanor-liadov.livejournal.com]

Nika sighed, pausing briefly to shake his head.

Laughing softly.

"You say that as if it's a bad thing."

His finger caressed the cap of his fountain pen fetishistically as he tilted his gaze toward the door.

"But you're right. In this case, its definitely not worth ruining my manicure."

[utrov.livejournal.com]

Utrov stared at the MVD, wanting to want to grab him by the back of the neck and smash his too-pretty face against the table, let him snigger through a mouth full of broken teeth.

Better with a bang, than...

But all he felt was hollow.

Vasily threw his head back and laughed.

"Looks like we've found something to agree on! Never thought I'd see the day."

[nikanor-liadov.livejournal.com]

"For that declaration to make even a remote amount of sense, we'd need to have known each other longer than fifteen minutes," Liadov remarked, absently, touching his napkin to his lips.

His eyes traveled upward, seeking the clock on the wall.

Rakitin seemed to have turned into a pumpkin, and it wasn't even midnight.

"So, Polya, what are your plans for the evening?"

He paused and glanced at Utrov skeptically, struck by a thought.

"You aren't quartered in the visiting officers' wing, are you?"

It was more likely that he had a temporary quarters assigned; Molokov had, after all- but Nika allowed that they might not have reassigned his rooms. Or they might have. Groznyj Grad Administration was not known for their lingering empathy.

Molokov probably rarely used his assigned quarters anyway, thought Nika, wryly. Krauss seemed to have had a monopoly on the Captain's down time, and his night time.

On the other hand, if Utrov was quartered near them, Liadov would have to watch Polya fret like a schoolgirl every time the beady-eyed Captain crossed his path.

Something was definitely amiss in this situation. Something concerning Rakitin and this random administrative officer.

Whatever it was, it certainly didn't involve or interest him- unless the guy was threatening Rakitin's life or compromising the impartiality of the investigation.

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

After briefly opening his mouth, Polya had gone back to playing dead, more from habit than anything.

He was no longer afraid of this man.

Perhaps having stood in the shadow of Isaev so recently had burned out the conduits in him that carried fear. Perhaps, by that contrast, Utrov's pretensions at power of presence were revealed for the flimsy sham they were.

What was there to fear?

If the captain's words were an odd sort of threat - Look, I'm stupid, mad, or suicidal enough to condemn the both of us - it would have been potentially much more effective if it weren't directed at a man Polya had personally offered to service not three days previous.

That didn't make him any happier when Utrov said, "The German said I was thrown in the guest quarters. Something like that. There was an 'ach' in there somewhere."

Krauss probably wanted Molokov's former quarters left undisturbed for as long as he could manage it. He had seemed understandably sentimental. Also, they were probably haunted.

Utrov grinned, a little more maniacally than was, in Polya's opinion, strictly neccesary.

"Does that make us neighbors?" he said.

Well, it wasn't as though Rakitin didn't already have reasons to avoid that hallway as much as possible.

Nika had the best notion, he thought, in simply ignoring the man. No time like the present to start.

"I thought I'd go out to the firing range for a while," Polya said. "I'm not very good, but I think I can get better with practice."

As it often turned out, his brain was slower than his mouth.

"What about you?"

He heard it slip out and managed not to wince.

[nikanor-liadov.livejournal.com]

Nika frowned.

"I don't know," he said slowly, toying with his cup, spinning it slightly in the cage of his fingers. "Perhaps I'll turn in early."

It was certainly a tempting thought. His soul was exhausted.

His eyes sought Polya's with mild curiosity.

"The firing range?" he said, tilting his head. "I had no idea you were so interested in firearms."

He nodded.

"That's good, Rakitin. A man in our neighborhood of work should be adept with a piece, even if he primarily does benchwork."

That the Lieutenant should want to go to the range- at this late hour, after a rigorous interrogation- was unusual, but no more so than the habits of some of his colleagues.

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

"I've just begun to realize that," Polya said ironically.

He sipped tea, and deadpanned,

"You never know what's going to jump out of the shadows."

[nikanor-liadov.livejournal.com]

Nika averted his gaze significantly.

"Indeed," he murmured. "One never knows."