GRU Barracks, Part 2

[capt-kasya.livejournal.com]

(Continued from previous thread.)

Borishnakov burst from the dog pen, leaving dozens of barking puppies in his wake, though with a pair of boots clutched tightly to his chest.

First test passed, then. Kassian nodded. He had the feeling this particular Ocelot would earn his spots, as Isaev had phrased it, without any trouble. He certainly seemed ardent enough, barely pausing long enough to stamp on his boots before he began to slog through the snow toward the tanks Isaev had pointed out. Each was marked with a flash of red or black, though getting to the items in question without freezing body parts to the metal would be tricky. Trickier while drunk, he was certain, but Borishnakov seemed game.

As they watched from the landing, Kassian and Isaev started to talk...

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[andrei-isaev.livejournal.com]

Trying to regather his thoughts was like putting the ephemeral fluff back on a dandelion.

Andrei felt the Captain's hands clutch into his sleeves and the flesh beneath, felt the sniper's brow, warm and solid against his own, the heavily bossed ridge of bone above his eyes bespeaking his maturity, like a second year dog.

And Irinarhov's body was actually shaking; shaking- after all that impassivity, when all day he'd been making Andrei wonder how a stone statue could actually walk.

Excuse me, Captain, but how does a man of granite fire a Mosin-Nagant, anyway?

Andrei was aware of how inauspicious it would look, should anyone enter the room- himself, collapsed back against the lockers with his smartly uniformed legs braced apart, and the sullen, suspicious new Captain, holding him as tenderly as a woman, for the sake of fucking-your-mother.

All right, he allowed, not like a woman.

No, there was nothing remotely feminine about Irinarhov's gentle grasp, which hinted constantly at the strength behind it, nor his heavy, low breath against Andrei's throat, nor the scent of him, fresh sweat and cordite, with a slight musky cigar-sweetness.

"I don't understand," Andrei said, lifting his head away from Irinarhov's, looking him artlessly in the eyes.

He touched two fingers to his mouth, which was well-kissed and flushed, but not bruised or swollen. The hallmarks of passion, to him, were obvious. They were brands of need and urgency, written on skin by the instruments of ardor.

When you were soft with a comrade, it was because you were lazy, or feeling particularly affectionate, like half-grown cubs in a wolfpack, nibbling at ears, forgoing the mischievous teeth of rougher play.

"I don't get kissed like that very often," he remarked, vaguely.

It was the last thing he would have anticipated from a man like Irinarhov.

Someone so damaged, where did he come by this approach, which smacked of...romance and devotion?

Andrei smiled, confusedly, a crooked twist of his full mouth that was meant to be disarming and open.

"You're a contradiction in every way, Captain Irinarhov. I trace your lines again and again, and I can't make sense of them. And I'm no shoddy student of man."

He hesitated, letting his hand find the Captain's hair, his arm wrapping around him loosely.

"Where do you squirrel away that naivety, comrade?" he asked, frowning. "How is it it's still intact?"

[capt-kasya.livejournal.com]

Isaev's voice soothed him, and quieted his tremors. It was just good, he thought, that one of them could still think clearly.

Kassian opened his eyes to meet Isaev's, and saw only good-natured bemusement there, and no accusation.

He didn't know what he'd expected exactly. He hadn't been sure. But again, Isaev seemed to make things easy, and Kassian just gave a nod.

"Vitya said something to me once," he said. It hurt less to speak of him now, and he felt less regret. "He was always reading, about the news, about politics. Things he shouldn't have been, I'm sure, though I never paid attention."

He shifted, to ease back some of his weight, so that he wasn't crushing the lieutenant back into the lockers as much.

"He'd been reading about the war, and found something that said that of all the men that were born in my year, the ones that went away to the war, out of a hundred, three men came back, and the other ninety-seven were killed."

The companionable arm around him soothed him further, and his gaze turned more thoughtful, more sage. "He said, 'Kasya, you're damn lucky,' and I was...startled. I'd always thought it had been bad luck, to live through such times, to see such suffering. To lose my friends, my family."

He shrugged. "I had never thought of it that way before. That instead of dying with the others, I lived, and that was what you called luck."

Kassian reached up to run his fingers through a lock of Isaev's thick, soft hair. "I don't know if it's true. If Tennyson was right. But I don't like having good things, because I just end up losing them. But if they're inflicted on me, and there's nothing I can do..." He trailed off, and shook his head slowly. "I might as well enjoy what I have while I have it."

"And be grateful," he added, after moment.

He cocked his head slightly and took in a deep breath. "I don't know if that answers your question, comrade, but that's the way I see it."

[andrei-isaev.livejournal.com]

"Inflicted," laughed Andrei, abruptly. "Oh, eto bolshoi khorosho. Yeb tvoyu mat, svoloch!"

Did it answer his question?

"I don't think it does," he replied, idly. "But I'm content to tolerate my own uncertainty, as they advise in Socratic Method."

Irinarhov didn't get it. Perhaps because he was older, perhaps because he'd long since left expressions of youthful lust.

The difference, to Andrei, was profound. It wasn't that he'd never experienced sensuality or gentle moments of pleasure and benovolence. He'd touched and been touched in sweetness and adulation. Comrade love was complicated, unspoken and undeclared. There were no rules, per se, only what each man was willing to accept.

But Irinarhov's gesture had contained a different dynamic. One that went beyond the erotic and sensual, toward the reverential.

Andrei smirked good naturedly, arching his brow.

"Are you making love to me, Captain Irinarhov?" he drawled.

He didn't mind the Captain touching his hair. Ilya touched his hair, sometimes, when they were drunk and sprawled on a bunk, calling him Andrusha, murmuring utter nonsense into his cheek instead of his ear, amusing and endearing.

Irinarhov looked thoughtful, or maybe just dazed. His dark eyes were solemn and shining.

Vitya again, this Vitya. The obvious question that it begged was whether he'd kissed his sniper comrade like that.