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

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

Rakitin looked down at where Deimos clung to him like a blind leech seeking unprotected flesh. It was something like the cool dispassion of lifting the liver from a corpse.

"So that's what it is to you," he said, through dawning understanding. "A...fetish?"

The gun was pressed between them, steady against Deimos's chest.

"You're like the men who sniff women's shoes."

He looked down at Deimos with pity.

"You don't understand at all," he said, "that someone is anything but your doll to break in a fit of pique."

Sorrow weighed his shoulders.

"You're nothing but a spoiled child."

Rakitin's eyes closed in sadness, and he said, "You truly are pathetic."

Eveything had a reason.

"There would be no pleasure in killing you, Deimos."

How tawdry, sad, and stained those reasons often were.

"I would put you down like a rabid dog, because that is what you've chosen to be."

[krasnogorje.livejournal.com]

“Why do you insult me, when I give nothing but kindness to you?” The charged smile evaporated from his features, and he relaxed his grip on Rakitin’s coat. “To compare what I do to a fetish… you disgust me.”

Dmitry shook his head, and laughter caught in his throat.

“You’re the one who doesn’t understand, and you never will. You, with your fancy words and lifeless insults. You go around picking up broken pieces but you’ll never understand what pleasure there is in destruction. Not even if I showed you…”

At that moment, he wanted to strangle the life from the pathologist, but his hands remained still, one limp at his side, one resting against Rakitin’s raised arm.

“And you’ll never understand what I am, what I do, or what I am becoming. You never should have asked.” Dmitry's tone was even and calm, and it surprised him.

He looked down at the gun between them, but lingered close through an uneasy silence.

Somewhere, a dog barked. An engine rumbled to life in the distance.

He was aware that a peculiar sadness was leaching into him, like the blue shadows that remained in the wake of an extinguished fire. Only little embers remained, dancing just beyond his periphery vision.

Finally, his attention flicked back to Polya and he smiled, very slightly. “You know… you’re warm, and you smell nice.”

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

"You're not the first person here to say that," Polya muttered.

He raised his eyes.

"Of course. You imagine yourself some kind of artist. Never imagining that someone could be more than your canvas."

Pale faces beneath the sheet.

"I understand too well. I've been shown. I've seen the aftermath of the work of your kind."

A listless smile cracked his lips.

"Maybe you yourself. Moscow is large but the world is small."

His arm was entangled with the murderer's as if they had paused in the middle of a mad dance.

"Tell me that, then. What are you becoming?"

He jerked the gun at the killer's heart, just enough to admonish.

"Is there any reason not to end your life here and now, besides not giving you the satisfaction?"

[krasnogorje.livejournal.com]

The world itself was a great, blank canvas though, at least according to Iosef.

And Red Square had seemed both perfect canvas to one, and perfect hunting grounds to the other, and ruination to both.

Dmitry shrugged because it was reflexive, and seemed like the logical thing to do. “I don’t know,” he murmured, averting his eyes. “I don’t know anything any more, and I don’t have any answers for you. I don’t know why I want to make you understand me, or why I want to understand you.”

He flinched away when Polya moved suddenly, wincing, thinking his life was over at last. The was only silence and the pounding of his own heart. No gunshots, no searing pain.

“You don’t want to kill me.” He breathed in the cold night air and held it, letting the rush of adrenaline go with it. “And I don’t want to kill you, really. I don’t think I want to hurt anyone anymore, and I don’t know why. Maybe you can tell me, if you understand men like me so well.”

There was no malice in his tone, only a suggestion, an offer that came out half-hearted at best.

Finally he smirked, in spite of himself. “Maybe there’s really somethin' to the Fury’s theory of purification by fire.”

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

It surprised Rakitin that Deimos winced. The touch of the gun had seemed to excite him before.

"It's the result I know, not the cause," he said. "That's why I asked you."

Wanting to understand was the state of the universe at rest. It didn't need a why.

"And...no. I don't want to kill you."

His eyes, customarily warm and curious, hardened.

"But if you hurt anyone here, I will."

He said it in the voice of fact that he used for reporting findings.

"I promise you that."

[krasnogorje.livejournal.com]

“Maybe if we go around in circles for long enough, we’ll start making sense to one another.” He laughed dryly and shook his head.

Ippolit Rakitin would have to wait in a very long line for his chance, should Dmitry ever slip. There wouldn’t be a lot left to kill by the time Polya’s number came up.

Dmitry finally let go of Rakitin’s coat, but didn’t drift too far. “It’s cold.” He offered, both of the dark night and the pathologist’s unusual disposition. “Where will you go?”

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

Rakitin released a husk of a laugh, holstering his gun.

"I would have to be a fool to tell you that."

He shrugged, resettling his coat on his shoulders.

"There's no reason you shouldn't change your mind about wanting to kill me, and no reason I should make it easy for you."

Rakitin cocked an eyebrow.

"Will you return to your brothers?"

[krasnogorje.livejournal.com]

“There’s no reason I should tell you that either. What if you change your mind?”

It was still possible that he could catch Io and Phobos before they went out on night patrol. If he hurried, he could join them on the mountain with a cup of bitter coffee, huddled around a bonfire. Pulling a double was better than laying in an empty bed tossing and turning all night long, alone with his thoughts.

“Just… be careful. Out there.” Deimos gestured, vaguely. “In the dark. All alone.” He picked up the handle of his flamethrower where it dangled at his side by a fuel line, frowned at it, and waved to the lieutenant.

Something made him want to ask if Rakitin wanted an escort to wherever it was he wasn't going, even though it would be pointless to even offer.

“Oh, one other thing. Could you please tell Nika I said hello?”

[hajimenoippolit.livejournal.com]

"Da," Polya said. "I'm sure he'll be overjoyed to hear from you."

He paused, brows lifting in mild affront.

"There's no need to fear me shooting you in the back. I would shoot you in the front, like a gentleman."

Rakitin turned to the route that would take him through the shadows to the shooting range. Creatures that lurked in the darkness were nothing to those that emerged smiling into the light. By day, the murderer they hunted walked among them, the same as any other but for the sickness beneath the skin. That frightened Polya more than the stalker in the night.

Probably he should take more precautions. If he was killed by the person he was sent here to help look for, he would feel very silly, and probably anything he found out in the process would go to waste. Hardly anyone listened to dead people these days.

"I should say the same thing," he said, giving Deimos a long, not entirely antagonistic stare. "Be careful."