Room 307

[vostok-n2o4.livejournal.com]

It was just starting to mist rain as the cosmonaut reached the side door of the East Wing.

The front door was far too obvious. Volgin lingered there, near the offices, never doing anything more productive than brooding and scowling at the houseplants.

The Fury cursed at the weather as he stepped into the deserted hallway; nature was a spiteful bitch, an entire hour of his day was wasted polishing his helmet, ruined by water spots and streaks.

It was almost enough to ruin his entire day, and even the good mood he found himself in after pointless banter earlier with the Fear.

Raining, again. Miserable.

Maybe the Sorrow finally realized Voyevoda had come home…

In an unexpected gesture of good nature that surprised even himself, The Fury allowed a guard to pass on the other side of the narrow stairway with only a glare. There were more important things to worry about than harassing common soldiers… like the fact that Voyevoda had finally come home, or the troubling lack of orders she left them with.

Voices echoed through the deserted building, and the cosmonaut stopped for a moment, content to listen. Dull murmurs, distorted by the cavernous hallway. Granin and Volgin. Nothing of importance.

Shaking his head, he continued on to the makeshift laboratory he claimed as his own.

Granin. What a fucking lunatic. It was impossible to respect a man who searched for hope in the bottoms of vodka bottles.

In spite of his mood, the Fury smirked as he turned on the light and surveyed the scene -- the damaged hovercraft near the window, parts and tools strewn around haphazardly, papers and books heaping in piles on the floor.

Organization had never been his forte, but the cluttered laboratory was a welcome and familiar sight. No one would bother him here, except for Krasnogorje soldiers coming in for repairs, and those like-minded men were never a bother.

It was the red scarf coiled in a crumpled heap on the heavy metal desk near the far corner of that made him smile as he removed his helmet and slipped the heavy jet pack from his shoulders, easing it to the floor.

The lunatic wasn’t quite sure what to think of its owner, but as he set to work repairing the damaged craft, he almost hoped the Ocelot Senior Lieutenant would be along soon to collect his scarf.

It seemed out of place amidst the scattered papers and blueprints. The scarf was far too cheerful. Too flammable.

The kid was interesting to talk to, at least. He didn’t cower away like the rest of them, and didn’t give in to his temper, even when provoked.

And hell, the cosmonaut mused, pulling scorched wires free of the hover craft’s interior, even Raikov would have made better diversion than agonizing over the possible details of The Joy’s secret mission.

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[elyseexpatriate.livejournal.com]

The Sorrow watched the young Major take his leave and wondered what he had expected. Recognition? Some sort of significance? Or that the aura that surrounded the boy, the pain and sorrow that clung to him like gunsmoke, was something he could somehow disperse?

Hubris. Ever the classical tragic flaw.

Perhaps he should have bowed, like Father Zosima to Dmitri Karamazov.

The Sorrow would not let bitterness tinge his smile. What dominion, after all, did he have on what would come? The future was the business of the living.

There, as ever, lay the tragedy.

"I'm afraid I have little talent in the area of spectacular revenge, my friend," The Sorrow said, smiling fondly. "You, however, have more than enough for the both of us."

Demur though he might, the name Krauss slipped into a pocket of The Sorrow's mind. There, now, was a man with his share of ghosts...

The Sorrow laughed silently at The Fury's suggestion of how he mght be spending his time. Such an interestingly limited imagination. "Boring? Not as such, no. It is..."

He paused for a moment, doubting that such an enduringly kinetic personality as The Fury could understand the endless entrancement afforded by simple observation. The relevance despite inestimable distance, the motions predictable in their grandious sweep but with fine details dictated by unnumbered thousands of conflicting forces...

The Sorrow had forgotten how easy it was to underestimate his comrade.

"It is," he said softly, "something like watching the stars."

The Fury's curiosity was natural, and brought a smile to The Sorrow's incorporeal lips. As did his choice of euphemism.

The cosmonaut's attempts at delicacy always had met with mixed success.

"Not such a terrible metaphor, really. It is indeed something like sleep."

The Sorrow smiled.

"The difference lies, of course, in how vividly we dream."

[vostok-n2o4.livejournal.com]

Typical, the cosmonaut thought, and all too nauseatingly familiar.

He asked a simple enough question: how? How did the spirit medium come to be separated from his earthly form? It seemed the best place to start in order to eventually reach some vague understanding of the phenomenon floating before him. The question was logical and structured, and the Sorrow responded with hazy descriptions of what it felt like.

Very well, then.

“You didn’t float up to heaven, sprout wings, and start playing a harp.” The Fury observed, uncoiling a roll of wire thrown haphazardly to the floor. It was an innocent reflection, though it made him wince visibly at the thoughts that followed. “I saw no God beyond the atmosphere. Only darkness, and the cleansing fires of hell itself.”

The silence was deafening.

“There is no God.” The cosmonaut concluded, “and humanity is doomed.”

[elyseexpatriate.livejournal.com]

In no state of matter would lying to a comrade become acceptable. The Sorrow had thought himself rather clever for avoiding the question.

Dissembling, as it turned out, felt little better.

It had been no tragedy. Certainly no betrayal. To The Sorrow, death was essentially a change of address. But some viewed it otherwise. The Fury was familiar with death as associated with the enemy. The Sorrow had no fear that the news of his end could affect the unit's loyalty, but the truth could serve no purpose, and only add to his Joy's pain.

"Some mysteries," The Sorrow said gently, "are meant to remain enshrouded. Once the departed release hold of this world..."

He shrugged.

"Those who die in battle are more reluctant to sever our ties." The Sorrow smiled. "We want to see how the war ends."

His comrade's despair saddened him. Hopelessness in a soldier was unbecoming.

"We may all ascend to Valhalla yet."

A firelit hall of warriors... Not a bad afterlife, as they came. The Sorrow felt fond sympathy for the wise old one-eyed god. And he had always liked ravens.

"The difference between doom and salvation is only a choice."

[andrei-isaev.livejournal.com]

Isaev had been standing there for several moments, politely hesitant to intrude on the Fury's delusional ranting with himself.

No, Isaev thought, that's not fair.

It wasn't ranting at all. It was a fully-formed and civil conversation, albeit from one side.

Sprung, no doubt from the brow of Zeus, and right into that colossal fishbowl the cosmonaut watched the world through.

Andrei had once seen an old man in Petrograd Square wearing a metal colander on his head, with a wire coathanger twisting out of the top into a kind of antenna.

"Hello, grandfather," Andrei had said, cheerfully, even though this man was nothing like his own grandfather.

"Going to wash and dry a salad, are you Grandfather?" Andrei had laughed, good naturedly, patting the old chuvak on the back and giving him a few rubles from his pocket money.

The old man had smiled and kissed him on the cheek then fixed him with solemnly shining black eyes.

"No!" he said, pointing to his unconventional hat. "I talk to God, direct!"

Andrei had been delighted with this answer, for reasons he couldn't identify. Everyone knew there was no God, so why should he be any less accessible by colander than through a priest?

The old man had curved a clawed hand around his forearm and leaned in.

"You are young man. You need know nothing yet, but if you have question, I ask him!"

It was a soft memory. Standing there, despite the ominous presence of the looming flame soldier, Isaev smiled.

He cleared his throat, lightly, to get the Fury's attention

"Sir," he said, saluting, raising his chin. "Many apologies for the intrusion- Major Ocelot admitted me on his way out, Sir."

He turned his head toward the Fury's imaginary friend.

What the hell.

"Pardon me, I didn't see you there, Sir," he added, graciously, saluting in the direction of the Fury's attention.

Who the fuck knew. Maybe there was actually something there. Maybe the man had a muse.

Maybe he talked to God direct.

"I won't take much of your time, sir," Andrei added, with a nod at the dissembled mass of metal sheeting and wires that seemed to be slowly coalescing into a whole. "I can see you're busy."

[elyseexpatriate.livejournal.com]

The Sorrow appreciated youth who knew their manners, inevitable hint of mockery notwithstanding.

Long past were the days of conversational reverence for the deceased.

The boy had been mentioned, in...passing, by a few spirits of The Sorrow's acquaintance. His aura held no outright malice. How rare.

The Sorrow smiled, and inclined his head toward Isaev.

To The Fury, he said,

"You've grown popular."

It was amusing, that they should share now a similar aversion to prolonged exposure to humanity, for entirely different reasons.

The living were...tiring.

"Later, then."

The Sorrow drew himself together for a last moment of solidity, and smiled at the both of them.

"We'll meet again."

[andrei-isaev.livejournal.com]

"Holy fuck," exclaimed Andrei, dropping his salute like a hot rock.

He hadn't drunk enough in his lifetime to see shadow men. But there one had been, he swore, for the slightest of infinitesimal moments.

The Fury was distracted from replying to him, and seemed to grab at the empty air, looking irritated.

So he hadn't imagined it.

Andrei took a breath and looked down, adjusting his beret and gathering his expression.

Best to ignore it, like most things here, unless explicitly directed to acknowledge them.

[vostok-n2o4.livejournal.com]

The way the lieutenant looked at him was a familiar enough expression, marked by doubt that was barely hidden -- the bewilderment of a man who considered himself sane, observing the conversation of someone he considered insane.

The Fury often found himself on the receiving end of that uneasy half smile, enough that it didn’t bother him to be gently mocked by the Ocelot soldier.

After all, he was an Ocelot through and through, secure in his perceived sanity, marked in red and black. His opinion counted for little. Still, it would be fun to fuck with his brain a little.

“Comrade Isaev, I see that you have just reached a newfound belief in the existence of wraiths, apparitions, specters, spooks, and ghosts. I congratulate you whole-heartedly.” The Fury drew himself up and applauded Isaev with just as much graciousness as he had spared saluting the Sorrow.

“Now, how do you feel about space aliens, extra-terrestrials, and little green men from Mars?”

The cosmonaut stepped around the remains of the hovercraft and grabbed the lieutenant, throwing an arm around his shoulders in a surprising gesture of camaraderie. “I’ve seen some pretty terrifying aliens in my day,” The Fury laughed, pulling Isaev along to where he had last seen the red scarf, before he turned over the table it was resting on. “Big, bulbous black eyes, slimy gray skin, and mouths full of razor sharp teeth. You should really be careful, on night patrol. Phobos of the Krasnogorje patrol swears he was abducted and experimented upon by similar vile creatures.”

[andrei-isaev.livejournal.com]

Andrei was mollified by the cosmonaut's casual acknowledgment of the sighting; it told him this was something that he could acknowledge as well. Technically the Fury was a superior officer, and he while his ultimate loyalty was to Ocelot, in the major's absence he was equally pleasant to the ranking officer in any given room.

"Newfound, no," said Isaev, with a wan smile. "I don't think there's anyone in Matrushka Rossiyja who grew up without a house spirit, comrade. I just hadn't expected anything more arresting than yourself to be occupying this room."

It didn't bother him to be given shit over his startle response. It had been rather humorous. He paused, smiling wryly as the Fury enacted his supercilious lauding, then shrugged.

"Aliens, however, I must confess, do not intrigue me. That they exist seems a fully foregone conclusion- with such an infinite cosmos, and the laws of probability being what they are. I don't consider them supernatural."

His eyebrows raised in frank surprise as the flamesuited man slung an arm over his shoulders.

"You seem unusually ebullient today, comrade cosmonaut," Isaev remarked, watching the table upend, prey to the Fury's cheerful swath of destruction. "To be honest, I hadn't expected any smiles, from you or the Major."'

He really didn't want to speculate on what happened to poor Phobos.

[vostok-n2o4.livejournal.com]

“I have no reason to be in a bad mood. Not anymore.” Not when he had such marvelous plans for revenge, and a good reason to test out the experimental composition-4 explosive shipped in nearly two months ago. “I found a reason for exaltation.”

The Fury let go of the lieutenant, righting the table that had faced his wrath. It wobbled, unsteady with bent legs and loose screws. Obviously, the poor thing was accustomed to rough treatment, as evident by the scorch marks.

“The last I saw of the scarf I stole from you at mess a few mornings ago, it was on the desk in the corner.” The cosmonaut gestured -- a crimson mantle drowning in a sea of blueprints. If inanimate objects were capable of human gestures, the scarf was struggling to stay afloat and gasping for air.

“But you did not come here to fetch it,” the Fury concluded. “You are an Ocelot; your specialty is stealth. If you wanted to, you could have picked the lock on the door and stole it back in the darkness of night, when I was away…”

He glanced at the folding chair that had been victim to the brunt of his rage, twisted into a mangled knot of bent metal, and the hole it had knocked in the plaster wall. “You came here because I invited you.”

Pointedly, he glared at Isaev through the thick hazy glass of his helmet. “Why? Not because it is socially expected to accept an invitation. No, I want to know why…why do you trust me? Even when your commander flinches away?”

[elyseexpatriate.livejournal.com]

The Sorrow laughed quietly to himself, glad that a last notion had caused him to linger, though no longer at any visible opacity. So The Fury had something of classical mythology stored behind that helmet of his after all. Though it would be difficult not to, when so many of the names scattered across the heavens had been pulled from the unresisting hands of ancient gods and heroes.

"One final thing I must ask of you, comrade," The Sorrow murmured, pitched for the cosmonaut's ears alone, and deftly resisting the phrase 'last request.' "Please, do not mention this meeting to The Joy."

Another advantage of being dead was that one had no compuction to linger to answer questions.

[andrei-isaev.livejournal.com]

Isaev paused, blinking.

He caught sight of the crimson scarf, and reached for it, plucking it from the smothering table and pulling it out like a snake. The relief of holding it again was an absent afterthought, as the Fury's words made him contemplative.

"That's...a very good question, isn't it?"

Andrei paused, then smiled bemusedly.

"I don't rightly know. I shouldn't trust you, by apocryphal accounts, of course..." he glanced up, regarding the cosmonaut carefully. "And yet...I feel you've given me no reason not to. After all, you're not one to gild the lily, comrade. Even when you plan to stomp on it."

He ran the scarf through his hands. Ilya's scarf. It felt good. The wool was soft and carded.

"I suppose I could still fear you, even if I trusted you...but the thing is- it seems contraindicated. I like you, comrade. You aren't a shell."

It was honestly said.

The Fury was not pretending to be anything, and had never been anything but civil to him.

"Why, even your death threats are unfailingly polite," said Andrei with a grin. "And I suppose I came because I was welcome."

He lifted an eyebrow.

"Aren't I?"