Revelations, Part II
Jan. 26th, 2008 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eyes_adriftWe're getting to know each other better.
It's interesting. He comes from an entirely different world than I do. I guess most everyone does, in a way, but I like hearing about his life, his job. His old friends.
I guess he'll be heading back to them, one day.
Carpe Diem, someone told me once. Seize the day. Live for the moment.
Guess I will.
I always do.
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eyes_adrift: The aftermath of pounding warmth sent shudders through Aryol's body, left him gasping and exquisitely witless. He clung to the major, grip tightening, weight pressed down heavily against his back.
Aryol let out a groan, loud and lusty.
He gathered himself after a few moments, enough to breathe in a slow and steadying breath, enough to gather himself and shift his weight, gently easing out. A shiver laced through him, and he kept a close arm around the major's back even as he let himself collapse again at the major's side.
"Oh christ," he breathed, and shivered again. "That was so...perfect and wild."
His grip around the major tightened, after a moment.
"You all right? I wasn't...too rough, was I?"
nikanor_liadov: The soldier's disengagement felt odd, and Nika exhaled heavily, collapsing onto his chest, bearing the other man's weight without thought.
"Mmm," he said, inarticulately.
Then he opened one eye.
"No," he murmured, mildly. "At least, I don't think so. It felt rather sublime, I thought..."
He laughed, quietly.
"Why? What happened to the last bastard you hit that hard? Are you trying to prepare me for the worst?"
eyes_adrift: "No," Aryol said, after a moment.
He shook his head, as if to dislodge a stray thought.
"I mean...nothing like that. It's just...well, I didn't hold back. I was pretty rough. I wanted to make sure it wasn't too much."
He shifted his arm to rub the major's back in broad, lazy circles, thinking quietly, remembering how it had been in the shower with Leshovik. Leshovik had left him after that, and had avoided him since.
But the major was nothing like Leshovik, Aryol thought. Far more expressive.
He smiled then, slowly.
"It was really good, wasn't it?"
Aryol leaned over to graze a kiss across the major's shoulder blade, then leaned down further, to kiss his mouth.
nikanor_liadov: "It was," agreed Liadov, letting the soldier kiss him, pushing the dark and sweat-damp strands of hair back from the smooth brow that rose above dark and earnest young eyes. "All that I asked for and more."
Interesting, the sensation of seed coating his inner thighs. One he knew, but not intimately.
"Rough is good," said Nika, with a soft laugh. "It keeps matters in check."
Easy to detach, to be no more than a body and a need. He'd done it often enough himself.
It was intimacy that always stabbed him worst, in the vulnerable, veiled places he kept under lock. The unguarded moments where he caught Captain Isaev regarding him silently from across a table, with such feverish tenderness that Nika could hardly hold his pen.
He toyed with the soldier's hair.
Perspiration had made it curl slightly, he could picture it- unruly and blackish, coiled around his finger in love-locks.
"You must be from the same place as Irinarhov," he remarked, idly. "Somewhere they have hair like soft blackbriar."
eyes_adrift: "You think so?"
A thrill ran through Aryol, as sudden as lifting as an updraft of warm air.
Even the major saw it, the resemblance between Aryol and Kasya, and in more than just features and build, but even fine details, like the texture of their hair.
It once more affirmed what he knew in his heart, but couldn't prove to someone like Leshovik, though Aryol half-suspected that even Leshovik knew it too, but just didn't want to admit it.
That meant it really had to be true, Aryol thought.
He shifted closer to the major, letting out a soft, pleased sigh.
Aryol found himself wondering what had happened between the major and Kasya before Aryol had known either of them. If the major had twined long and graceful fingers through Kasya's hair too, if he'd murmured in Kasya's ear.
But he'd said they'd never fucked, which Aryol believed, though there was still some sort of intimacy there, something far more tender than the raw antagonistic lust he'd seen last night.
He found the idea interesting.
Aryol grazed his lips across the major's shoulder, spent some time kissing the damp salt off his back.
"He's handsome, isn't he?" Aryol murmured, in between languid caresses of tongue and lips. "Do you think I look like him?"
nikanor_liadov: Nika paused.
"I suppose so," he said, mildly. "Now that you mention it."
He tipped the soldier's jaw up on the points of his fingers and studied him, frowning, turning his face slowly one way and then the other.
"Yes," he said reflectively. "I see it."
A shrug.
"You must be from the Ukraine as well, then."
He nodded, looking over the nose, the brow, but stopping at the mouth. Where stoic and sullen lips should have been was a thrilled and radiant smile.
"It's not a perfect likeness," he said, vaguely, after a moment. "You have more joie de vivre, somehow."
eyes_adrift: "Wouldn't anyone?"
Aryol's smile shaded into a grin, wide and half smug, but he shrugged.
"I guess Captain Irinarhov has good reasons to be the way he is. But aside from that...you're not the only one who sees the resemblance. So does my partner."
Though Leshovik had done more than just see the resemblance, he'd fucked it.
It made Aryol wonder again about the major, and Kasya. If the major's thwarted desire for the captain had somehow translated into an actualized pursuit of Aryol.
Just like Leshovik.
Aryol frowned, but only briefly, eyeing the major a moment.
The encounter had been too random, he told himself. Only a chance meeting of strangers in the dark. There had been no recognition in the major's eyes then, only desire.
Hadn't there?
Aryol turned his head, and kissed the major's fingers.
"You still want that drink?" he asked, quietly.
nikanor_liadov: Nika felt the brush of soft lips tipping the pads of his fingers, and nodded in the darkness, despite the futility of the gesture.
"Yes," he said, after a moment. "I think I would. You? Will you have some cognac with me?"
eyes_adrift: "I'll have a sip or two," Aryol said.
He grazed a parting kiss across the major's fingers and gently disengaged himself, moving to the edge of the bed. He felt in the darkness for the light on the bedside table and tightened the bulb. The light came on, illuminating the corner of the room.
Aryol blinked and paused, waiting for his eyes to adjust. He glanced over his shoulder.
"Don't move," he murmured. "I'm not done with you yet."
He got up to fetch the major's valise, finding the bottle of cognac, then retrieving a glass from the cabinet.
"You want it warmed?" Aryol asked.
He didn't drink much himself, he was well-versed in ways a man liked his drink.
nikanor_liadov: "I do," replied Nika, lightly, laying back against the headrest and putting his arms behind his head.
He paused, watching the soldier's lithe and naked form stroll over and open his valise with a custom and certainty he liked.
Impunity, he thought, a disarming and warming trait.
"How kind of you to inquire," he murmured, after a moment.
The light pleased him.
The darkness did his friend no favors, except in the sense of tactility- muscles and scent, and thick, soft hair read as well in the dark as not, but while the sensory deprivation had been enjoyable as a lark, he liked being able to see the soldier's physique once more.
A fine physique it was. Indeed.
"You know something of this drill, then," Nika remarked, vaguely. "Of the finer points of liquor. From your...past associations, am I right in assuming?"
eyes_adrift: Aryol nodded.
"Yeah. I don't really drink, but I've learned a few things."
He paused, looking around the room, spotting a lighter and ration candle on the table by the window. Aryol scooped everything up and moved back to the bed.
"Just by paying attention," he said with a shrug as he sat down.
Aryol poured cognac into the glass with a precise hand, setting it down on the side table. He lit the candle next, and then took candle to glass.
He looked up at the major while he let the cognac warm.
"It wasn't all bad," he said. "I learned about liquor, and how to play chess. I heard a lot of stories about the way things used to be, before I was born. I learned about high literature."
The glass grew warm in his hand, and he set the candle aside. Aryol took a sip of the cognac, closing his eyes briefly.
"That's good," he said. "I can tell by the way it smells. And it tastes smooth, like cream."
He held out the glass to the major. "Cheers."
nikanor_liadov: "Candy in a glass," agreed Nika, luxuriating against the rough sheets.
He tilted his head.
"A Russian who doesn't drink? How unusual. Personal preference? Operant conditioning? Or are you just that much of a good nephew to Uncle Lenin?"
eyes_adrift: Aryol flopped back on the bed opposite the major, leaning against his leg. He smiled, lazily, and ran his tongue over his lips.
"Dreams," he said. "I have strange dreams, when I drink."
He shrugged.
"Disturbing things. I've learned it's just better if I don't. But I love the smell. And the taste, especially on warm lips."
He felt sated, relaxed. He ran an idle hand against the major's knee.
"You came well-prepared."
Aryol let his hand move to the inside of the major's thigh, stroking his fingers against fine, soft skin.
"You have another suitcase under the bed. Heavy, but locked."
He raised a brow.
"How much more liquor did you bring with you?"
nikanor_liadov: The words caused Liadov's mouth to curve, and crease into a faint smile.
"Ah, that...is not cognac, nor is it vodka."
He paused, tracing a finger along the sniper's collarbone, grazing it down between the minor line that bisected the twin, raised plateaus of his pectorals.
"My entire bar stock is contained within that barkeeping valise," Nika purred. "If I'm soon to be out, I suppose I'll need to deal with the German, nyet?"
eyes_adrift: "That's what I've heard," Aryol said. "I met him the other day."
He levered himself up on one elbow and reached out to neatly extract the glass from the major's hand. Aryol took a sip of the warm and buttery cognac and held it in his mouth as he leaned across to bring his mouth to the major's, letting the liquid pass between their lips.
Aryol smirked as he pulled away.
"He offered to get me anything I wanted."
He settled down again, at the major's hip.
"Though he didn't mention how he wanted to be paid. Have you dealt with him before?"
nikanor_liadov: Liadov looked at him sharply, making a small moue of displeasure.
"No," he muttered, "I haven't yet. Not in that kind of matter..."
He paused, tasting the remnants of cognac on his tongue, as gifted by the offhandedly audacious young sniper.
Nika lowered his eyes obliquely, shifting his shoulders in a slight shrug.
"But I dealt with him in another, personal matter. Settling an issue of estate for a friend. That was...odd, and ultimately unpleasant."
eyes_adrift: Aryol made a face.
"Unpleasant? I hope that doesn't mean you had to suck him off or something."
He looked at the major sidelong.
"No. I can't imagine you doing that. I got the feeling he would ask for something like that from me, though."
Aryol nodded, sagely.
"He kind of implied it, with the way he looked at me. I've known men like him, the kinds of things they want. Good thing I don't need anything."
He laughed once, quietly.
nikanor_liadov: "No, muzhchik. Nothing like that."
Liadov carefully weighed the emotion in the soldier's expression, finding it unsettlingly neutral. Affable.
"You see, I had an obligation to take care of. An executor's duty Captain Mikhail Stoivanovich. An object to deliver, from my dead comrade's house and render unto Krauss," he added dryly. "So I did as I was instructed."
His fingers traveled, idly, down the seam of the younger man's chest, lingering, playing here and there with sweeping fingertips.
"It was a ring. A Ural mountain Alexandrite ring, to be exact. Of a calibre and carat weight...quite possibly unparalleled."
Liadov bit his lip briefly, thoughtful.
"And a photo...in which Tsar Nicholas can be seen wearing the ring. It seems...according to a handwritten diary page that accompanies the photo and the ring, that Mikhail's grandfather himself took the ring from the dead Tsar's finger. He was present at the execution, apparently."
Nika gave a slight grimace.
"He was charmed by it, but the civil conversation quickly degenerated into tiresome second party threats on the behalf of the Flame Patrol, and warnings against the fact that one of my more loathsome collars was now in residence at Groznyj Grad, and free from Magadan."
He paused.
"And that he was intending to murder me as retribution."
eyes_adrift: Aryol listened quietly, absorbing the story. The lightest of creases furrowed his brow, and he rolled to lean on his elbow again, facing the MVD major.
"Tsar Nicholas' ring? Something like that...is priceless, comrade. There are men that would pay a fortune, just to hold such a thing. To possess a piece of history."
He shook his head.
"But Johann wasn't impressed? His loss, I suppose."
Aryol turned the major's words over, pausing for a few moments.
"So...who is this Magadan collar? The same one that confronted you the other night?'
His frown grew deeper.
"Is he going to give you more trouble?"
nikanor_liadov: Nika laughed, rather aridly.
"I rather doubt that. But yes...that was the man who I...redressed...the other night in the tank yard."
He paused.
"Lady killer. Literally."
Not ladies, Lasha would have said. Those were whores and shopgirls, Nikash.
And they were, but that was beside every conceivable point.
At least, every point Liadov might have conceded.
Nika shrugged, once more brushing the past aside like and errant, irksome cobweb.
"As for the ring, Krauss was quite taken with it for a moment. It's large, of course, and the gem is brilliant. Shiny things please the German, it seems. Yet I do not think the history was significant to him, as it was to Stoivanich- nor, as he's not a Russian, do I think he could appreciate the rarity of a Ural Alexandrite of that incredible magnitude."
He paused.
"You understand, comrade, the flaws in the composite of the stone render anything over two carats to be extremely uncommon."
eyes_adrift: "It bothers you," Aryol said, after a moment.
He studied the major's expression carefully, gaze flowing over the thin press of his lips and set of his shoulders, and the malachite hardness in his eyes.
"Not because it's so precious and valuable. Not because Major Krauss had no care for the history. But because..."
Aryol paused, cocking his head.
"Because your late comrade left something precious to Krauss, and the German disregarded the meaning behind the gift. The intent."
He frowned.
"Why did your comrade leave it to him, then? He must have thought..."
Aryol trailed off, hesitating, thinking, gaze weighted by memory. After a few moments, he looked back at the MVD major with a quiet, solemn regard.
"...that Krauss would have appreciated it."
nikanor_liadov: Nika sighed.
"I don't know what he was thinking, comrade. At all. I had no idea..."
His lips twitched.
"The German," he began again, hesitantly, "was more than a casual acquaintance to Stoivanich."
Liadov shook his head vigorously.
"He was married, you see, to a wonderful devoshka..."
He broke off, feeling a twinge of hypocrisy, and his indelibly ivory cheeks flushed in a rarified way.
"He had a child, a boy," he added, to differentiate their causes, and explain why he had been taken aback by Molokov's homosexual liaison.
eyes_adrift: Aryol frowned.
"So your comrade was married, and had a son...and was seeing Krauss on the side?"
He thought about that for a while, turning it over in his mind as if he were examining a chess piece, not focused on the indelible details of what it was, but rather, how it fit on the board.
"It almost sounds like you disapprove, comrade. He shouldn't have been having an affair because he was married?"
Aryol shifted, and drew closer, pushing the major's knees apart with a gentle pressure, settling between them, drawing in the heady musk of their sex. He let his head rest against the major's leanly muscled thigh.
He pondered what the major had said.
"Or because he was married to a nice woman, and had a son?"
nikanor_liadov: "No..."
Nika protested, but paused, gathering words like crows to his hand.
"It isn't that I condemn him for that. Many men are unfaithful. Our country is a bastion of mannish children with grabbing little hands and childish entitlement."
The sniper reclined at his loins, gazing up with smoky eyes, discerning and warm in his expression. The weight of his head was sensual and hedonist on the unguarded skin of Liadov's interior thigh.
"Isaev's father is a prime example of the philandering Russian man. Mistresses by the score, despite an avowed devotion to his wife."
He shrugged.
"I disapprove of none of it, comrade. I'm a hedonist by nature and nurture. What I didn't apprehend was that he carried on with his own kind at all...much less with a former Nazi kraut two decades his senior."
eyes_adrift: Aryol nodded, after a moment.
"All right, then."
He let his head loll to the side, and licked idly at the trails of his own seed that dried on the major's skin in translucent streaks. His thoughts lingered on the problem of the major's dead comrade.
"It sounds like your comrade was well-off, or he would have sold the ring before that. And he was well-positioned, as a captain. Not the type who would really need something from a man like Krauss..."
Aryol pondered.
"And he gave him the ring, which makes it seem like your captain comrade had...a sentiment for him. And that sounds like it's the hardest thing of all to apprehend."
He paused, licking his lips, savoring the pleasant tang of intimate fluids on his tongue.
"I'm sorry about your comrade, though," he said, more quietly. "Did you...favor him, not knowing he might have accepted? Or has there been no one for you but that other comrade you told me about...the bad one?"
nikanor_liadov: Nika laughed out loud.
"Molokov?" he exclaimed. "God, no. No, nothing like that. It was his wife I favored, and knew socially."
Liadov was caught, rapt, for a moment, observing the brunyet's tongue dance along the dry riverbeds of his own sweet effluvia. A wicked smile graced Nika's lips. He traced a fingertip along the young soldier's mouth, as if savoring the indecency.
"In truth, I expect that he chose me to execute this unorthodox part of his unofficial will because of my position in the Ministry. My ilk has a reputation for corruption, and he trusted my impunity in dealing with a contraband item such as that ring."
His gaze sobered and averted automatically.
"No," he said, belatedly. "I mean to say...there have been many someones. But no one else."
eyes_adrift: "I understand," Aryol said, his words softened by the weight of his own experience. "He's with you, even when he's not."
He let a kiss drift across the major's finger, as light as a zephyr.
"That's what you have to erase."
He paused.
"Let me clean you," he whispered, bending his head again.
Aryol's breath warmed the softest part of the major's thigh.
He licked the major's skin more in earnest, though with still-languid ardor. His tongue traced along each viscid route, following the trails from where they curved down to the major's kneecaps all the way up to the joining between crotch and thigh.
He paused, breathing, running his tongue over his mouth.
"You don't have to think of him now, if you don't want," Aryol added, quietly, glancing up to meet the major's eyes.
nikanor_liadov: "I wasn't," Nika returned, under his breath, watching.
Not until the sniper had brought him into it.
Ilarion hadn't truly been with him tonight, nor any other night since Liadov had set about crushing his presence into a tiny corner of the universe.
It was more that he hovered. Out of mind, perhaps, by sheer freezing will, but never out of sight.
"He might as well be in Magadan. He's in my Magadan."
Nika paused, shifting, letting his thighs ease open and running indolent fingers through coal dark locks, mouth slipping into a smile with unconscious and sultry ease.
"I won't lie to you. There are times I can't help but remember every detail of him, and his very being possesses my thoughts. Despite and still, I haven't thought of him during our time as intimate strangers, my friend."
eyes_adrift: "Intimate strangers."
Aryol tested the word like a new flavor, rolling it off his tongue.
"I like that. It's what we are."
It still thrilled him, that they hadn't exchanged names, but yet they talked like lovers did, about secret things.
He nodded, smiling slightly.
"If it matters, I don't think of anyone else when I'm with you, either."
Aryol shifted between the major's legs so he could reach the other side. He moved his tongue slowly, lingering, in no hurry to be finished, blowing warmth onto wet skin as he passed.
"You're unique to my experience, comrade."
nikanor_liadov: Liadov made a small, low noise of languid content as the sniper's tongue chased over his flesh, seeking salt and essence.
"It might not matter," he murmured, "but it pleases me to know, regardless."
It did, of course, for his ego was rather heavily invested in the success of seduction- not merely in the most obvious sense, but more in the whole act. Liadov prized his ability to tap into carnal charm, and hold the pleasure and attention of his coital conspirator at vantage for as long as they shared each other's bodies.
This man was no different, in that Nika would have disliked him to be thinking about his lover from the field during such carefully savored congress.
But he also knew he had no legitimate dominion over this unknown man, only a tenuous one by long nights and in stolen minutes.
Liadov raised an eyebrow.
"Your comrade is handsome. I wouldn't blame you for thinking of him."
eyes_adrift: Aryol laughed, dismissive.
"My comrade is also an asshole. Looks only get you so far in life. You have to have the personality to back them up."
Though it was true Leshovik had his own kind of charm, when he conceded to his own irascible nature. Aryol thought about the image Leshovik had shot into the target at the range, and his chest twinged lightly, in a distant way.
He shook his head slightly.
"I like who you are, comrade. It's you that's important. When we're fucking, my mind isn't on anyone else."
A wicked smile pulled at Aryol's mouth.
"If you turn around, I'll finish," he murmured, his voice lower, more intimate. "I'll suck you clean, and then we can go to bed."
He eased his head up gently, placing his hand on the major's buttocks, encouraging him to turn. Aryol's gaze shaded, becoming more pensive and astute.
"How handsome do you find him? Enough to fuck?"
nikanor_liadov: Nika's eyebrows rose.
"I certainly wasn't thinking of it like that, that I would ever..."
In truth, he was only being conciliatory. The mention of the comrade's good looks was unloaded and merely meant to inform the soldier that Liadov was not holding him to any standard regarding who might be occupying his thoughts while Nika occupied his bed and body.
There were a lot of good looking soldiers, after all.
"It never occurred to me."
Now that it did, he only frowned.
"Theoretically, yes, I suppose I wouldn't balk, under the right circumstances. And yet, I'm not sure I would ever have come to that on my own."
What was the sniper driving at? His gaze was inscrutable.
eyes_adrift: Aryol's expression relaxed into a small and sideways half-smile.
"That's all right," he said, quietly. "I was just wondering if that's what you meant."
He shrugged one shoulder.
"I'm enjoying myself with you, comrade. I'd like to keep your company, and not..."
Aryol trailed off, having to pause to find into words. His dark eyes flicked back and forth as he thought about what had happened between himself, Leshovik, and Lynx. How it had turned out.
He levered himself up and forward, and drew closer to the major, so their chests were nearly touching.
"And not fly from your hand to someone else's. If you know what I mean."
nikanor_liadov: Nika smiled faintly, fondly- flicking a strand of hair from the soldier's eyes with the brush of a finger.
"I'm not sure I do," he said, mild but receptive. "What does your lover have to do with it?"
It was a hilarious thing to say, in hindsight
eyes_adrift: Aryol's smile bloomed, brilliant and shining.
"Absolutely nothing," he murmured, and leaned forward to bring his lips to the major's in a kiss that was both tender and passionate.
He let it linger for long and luxuriant moments before he pulled back, grinning.
"Now turn over," he told the major, voice low and amused. "I'm going to tongue your ass."
nikanor_liadov: "I don't understand you," remarked Nika, smiling.
It was rhetorical.
He turned onto his stomach, gazing languorously over his shoulder at the man who fell to a crouch behind him.
"Why?" he murmured, pushing his tumbled buff-blond mane out of his eyes. "Do you want me to fuck him?"
Nika couldn't see how that made sense.
"Or are you asking if I care that you do?"
He paused.
"I don't, of course," he added. "Those kinds of things are immaterial."
eyes_adrift: Aryol drew his lips down the major's spine.
"No," he said softly. "I don't want you to fuck him. I don't particularly want to fuck him right now, either. It's just..."
Aryol paused, and kissed across the rounded firm muscle of the major's ass.
"Fucking...that's pretty immaterial. I've fucked a lot of people. Some of them I don't even remember, I'm sure. But being close to someone, spending time, having fun, whether fucking is involved or not...that's different. That's the part I don't think is immaterial."
He pulled back a little, and laid both hands on the major's buttocks, spreading his ass, exposing the rift and furrowed opening, which looked well-used and flushed pink, probably a little raw.
"Are you sore?" he murmured, kissing the tender ring of skin, pausing to soothe it with his tongue.
"I guess what I'm saying is...I don't consider you interchangable with anyone else. You're more than a warm body to me, lover, in spite of how it started. It's your bed I want to be warming at night."
nikanor_liadov: "Pleasurably used, but not in pain," Nika murmured absently.
His mind trickled around the sniper's words like honey.
"I've fucked and forgotten more men than I've sent to Magadan," he whispered, darkly.
A small snort, a laugh without humor.
Then he raised his head slowly, spilling tarnished gold back over naked shoulders.
Nika paused, eyes fixed on the wall.
"...I won't forget you."
eyes_adrift: Aryol paused, looking up, staring at the back of the major's head.
A quiet fell between them, and the room seemed insulated from all outside sound. He became conscious of the rasp of their skin against the linens as they shifted minutely, the light sighs of air from their lungs. Aryol felt like if he held his breath, he might be able to hear the major's heartbeat.
He leaned forward, and placed one last obscenely intimate kiss, his lips unhesitating, unashamed, moving as tenderly as he had kissed the major's mouth moments before.
Aryol pulled away gently, moving up along the major's body, settling close, chest against back, hips against buttocks.
Face behind neck, one arm slung around the leanly muscled chest.
"Someone left me something, once."
Aryol's voice was soft, almost reverent.
"It was a chess set. Beautiful. The board was made from ebon and bird's eye maple. The pieces were carved from ivory. The man who left it for me was the one who taught me how to play. He had it written that when he died, he wanted me to have it."
He shrugged a little, his chest pressing the major's back.
"But they didn't let me keep it. Only could only have what I could carry, and the set wasn't easily portable."
Aryol sighed, and kissed the major's neck.
"I don't know what happened to it."
nikanor_liadov: "Who gave it to you?" asked Liadov, after a moment. "Your father? A sweetheart? Or..."
He trailed off, realizing he probably could guess the answer.
"You like to play chess," he said, vaguely.
Lasha loved chess.
Nika was merely adequate at the game. Despite his lackadaisical mien, it tried his patience just enough that he soon bored of it.
"That's a clever man's game. A devious man's game."
eyes_adrift: "A man I knew, when I was young," Aryol said, with another shrug. "A lover, I guess. I didn't know any better then, to think of him otherwise. I think I'd say something different now."
He snorted lightly.
"But I wouldn't be with a man like him now. He reminds me of the German, actually. I'm sure you know the type, comrade."
Aryol let his lips rest against the back of the MVD major's neck, so his words rippled across skin, carried by breath.
"I don't know about devious, but I do enjoy the game."
He paused.
"Do you play? You say that like you don't."
nikanor_liadov: "I used to play with my subordinate," Liadov said, vaguely. "He enjoyed it with a fervency I found endearing."
Endearing, yes. Like a shot of pheromone to the groin.
He rarely referred to himself as Captain Isaev's superior. In practical terms, they held all the same responsibilities, signed the same black tickets, but in the hierarchy he out-tipped Ilarion by just that much.
"I'm able to hold my own, but my mind eventually wanders and I'm undone. My attention is too diamond-like and multi-faceted to excel at it. I lack the desire to crush kingdoms and conquer another man's kinghood, I suppose."
Liadov turned his head, gazing obliquely at the man who rested atop and coved to his form.
"I don't conquer that way."
eyes_adrift: "You make it sound so brutal. It doesn't have to be."
Aryol leaned to the side to meet the major's halfway gaze, and ventured a faint curve of a smile.
"We should play sometime, you and I. In bed, like this, after we've had sex, naked and marked with each other's seed. It'll be nice. Slow, like making love. Not crushing and conquering, but more...leisurely. Like seduction. Words and glances and touches. Single moves that can level fields."
He reached out and ran a hand through the major's thick hair, now artfully disheveled, erotic to Aryol's eyes.
"You might like it that way," he murmured. "That's how I play. I'm not interested in cutting down the other man. I just want him to yield."
nikanor_liadov: Liadov laughed.
"Yield, to what purpose?"
He rubbed his nose idly, displacing an itch.
"I'll play with you, comrade. It's not as if I loathe the game."
No, he loathed what the game stood in stead of, between their knees.
Lasha's eyes, snapping and hot blue, as he stabbed at the chastity of the table with each ivory piece, hands expressive in their ambition. Lips parted as he waited for Nika's recompense.
"Seduction," he said, almost to himself.
eyes_adrift: Aryol kissed the back of the major's neck.
"Yield, as men do, when they let another man penetrate them. For mutual pleasure, but also...to accept, to take in something vital."
He shrugged.
"You're not so different, are you? The way you conquer? Or at least, your result. I imagine you must be direct, though. With clear purpose."
Aryol smiled, remembering how the major had looked at him with those deceptively intent, low-lidded eyes. The proposition had been given and accepted before either of them had spoken a word.
The major had shifted underneath him earlier, Aryol recalled, the thought half-formed, like the flash of a dream image upon waking.
"Am I getting heavy, comrade? Shall we lie on our sides?"
nikanor_liadov: "If you like," Nika said, and they shifted accordingly.
The soldier's weight was gratifying, actually, but so was his warmth and the lateral press of his skin.
He felt fucked, thoroughly, and it amused him, as usual.
"I don't need to conquer," he said, softly, easing a smooth palm down the soldier's lightly field-bronzed arm. "I seem to engender surrender."
His hand caressed, idle and sensual.
"I conquer by default, through solitary excellence, and give no thought to the world of mortals, except in as much as I can affect justice."
His eyes gazed out from beneath the soft wave of burnished, tempered gold that threatened to engulf them.
"What about you?"
eyes_adrift: "Me?"
Aryol pushed the major's hair back with a lazy hand, exposing a perfectly unlined brow and a gaze that shone with the polished gleam of ivory, though shaded to a fine green.
"I suppose...I like to be a little direct. And unorthodox. I'm not like anyone else, and any man I face will know he faced someone worthy. And from that point...may the best man win."
He laughed then.
"I played my CO a few times. Chess, with blow jobs as a competition piece. Winner got to suck the other off."
Aryol's smile turned broad.
"Sometimes it's not bad to be conquered, instead of always conquering. Gives you a chance to relax and enjoy yourself. But you, however..."
He nodded, half to himself.
"You make yourself sound like a god, in one of those old stories. On high, untouched by men's hands. You're right about surrender, though."
Aryol relaxed against the man, his eyes lowered, but dark, his voice dropping into a low whisper.
"I wanted to surrender to you, that first night, and all of them that have followed."
nikanor_liadov: "I wasn't talking about chess," said Liadov, "and I don't think I'm a god."
He instinctively pulled the man close, burying his face in the black locks, inhaling possessively.
Taken aback at his own physical candor.
He looked at the soldier solemnly, with green eyes limned in gold.
"There's strength in surrender, I know that."
Nika paused.
"This is the first time I've ever given myself up to someone who wasn't a stranger in anything but name."
It's interesting. He comes from an entirely different world than I do. I guess most everyone does, in a way, but I like hearing about his life, his job. His old friends.
I guess he'll be heading back to them, one day.
Carpe Diem, someone told me once. Seize the day. Live for the moment.
Guess I will.
I always do.
eyes_adrift: The aftermath of pounding warmth sent shudders through Aryol's body, left him gasping and exquisitely witless. He clung to the major, grip tightening, weight pressed down heavily against his back.Aryol let out a groan, loud and lusty.
He gathered himself after a few moments, enough to breathe in a slow and steadying breath, enough to gather himself and shift his weight, gently easing out. A shiver laced through him, and he kept a close arm around the major's back even as he let himself collapse again at the major's side.
"Oh christ," he breathed, and shivered again. "That was so...perfect and wild."
His grip around the major tightened, after a moment.
"You all right? I wasn't...too rough, was I?"
nikanor_liadov: The soldier's disengagement felt odd, and Nika exhaled heavily, collapsing onto his chest, bearing the other man's weight without thought."Mmm," he said, inarticulately.
Then he opened one eye.
"No," he murmured, mildly. "At least, I don't think so. It felt rather sublime, I thought..."
He laughed, quietly.
"Why? What happened to the last bastard you hit that hard? Are you trying to prepare me for the worst?"
eyes_adrift: "No," Aryol said, after a moment.He shook his head, as if to dislodge a stray thought.
"I mean...nothing like that. It's just...well, I didn't hold back. I was pretty rough. I wanted to make sure it wasn't too much."
He shifted his arm to rub the major's back in broad, lazy circles, thinking quietly, remembering how it had been in the shower with Leshovik. Leshovik had left him after that, and had avoided him since.
But the major was nothing like Leshovik, Aryol thought. Far more expressive.
He smiled then, slowly.
"It was really good, wasn't it?"
Aryol leaned over to graze a kiss across the major's shoulder blade, then leaned down further, to kiss his mouth.
nikanor_liadov: "It was," agreed Liadov, letting the soldier kiss him, pushing the dark and sweat-damp strands of hair back from the smooth brow that rose above dark and earnest young eyes. "All that I asked for and more."Interesting, the sensation of seed coating his inner thighs. One he knew, but not intimately.
"Rough is good," said Nika, with a soft laugh. "It keeps matters in check."
Easy to detach, to be no more than a body and a need. He'd done it often enough himself.
It was intimacy that always stabbed him worst, in the vulnerable, veiled places he kept under lock. The unguarded moments where he caught Captain Isaev regarding him silently from across a table, with such feverish tenderness that Nika could hardly hold his pen.
He toyed with the soldier's hair.
Perspiration had made it curl slightly, he could picture it- unruly and blackish, coiled around his finger in love-locks.
"You must be from the same place as Irinarhov," he remarked, idly. "Somewhere they have hair like soft blackbriar."
eyes_adrift: "You think so?"A thrill ran through Aryol, as sudden as lifting as an updraft of warm air.
Even the major saw it, the resemblance between Aryol and Kasya, and in more than just features and build, but even fine details, like the texture of their hair.
It once more affirmed what he knew in his heart, but couldn't prove to someone like Leshovik, though Aryol half-suspected that even Leshovik knew it too, but just didn't want to admit it.
That meant it really had to be true, Aryol thought.
He shifted closer to the major, letting out a soft, pleased sigh.
Aryol found himself wondering what had happened between the major and Kasya before Aryol had known either of them. If the major had twined long and graceful fingers through Kasya's hair too, if he'd murmured in Kasya's ear.
But he'd said they'd never fucked, which Aryol believed, though there was still some sort of intimacy there, something far more tender than the raw antagonistic lust he'd seen last night.
He found the idea interesting.
Aryol grazed his lips across the major's shoulder, spent some time kissing the damp salt off his back.
"He's handsome, isn't he?" Aryol murmured, in between languid caresses of tongue and lips. "Do you think I look like him?"
nikanor_liadov: Nika paused."I suppose so," he said, mildly. "Now that you mention it."
He tipped the soldier's jaw up on the points of his fingers and studied him, frowning, turning his face slowly one way and then the other.
"Yes," he said reflectively. "I see it."
A shrug.
"You must be from the Ukraine as well, then."
He nodded, looking over the nose, the brow, but stopping at the mouth. Where stoic and sullen lips should have been was a thrilled and radiant smile.
"It's not a perfect likeness," he said, vaguely, after a moment. "You have more joie de vivre, somehow."
eyes_adrift: "Wouldn't anyone?"Aryol's smile shaded into a grin, wide and half smug, but he shrugged.
"I guess Captain Irinarhov has good reasons to be the way he is. But aside from that...you're not the only one who sees the resemblance. So does my partner."
Though Leshovik had done more than just see the resemblance, he'd fucked it.
It made Aryol wonder again about the major, and Kasya. If the major's thwarted desire for the captain had somehow translated into an actualized pursuit of Aryol.
Just like Leshovik.
Aryol frowned, but only briefly, eyeing the major a moment.
The encounter had been too random, he told himself. Only a chance meeting of strangers in the dark. There had been no recognition in the major's eyes then, only desire.
Hadn't there?
Aryol turned his head, and kissed the major's fingers.
"You still want that drink?" he asked, quietly.
nikanor_liadov: Nika felt the brush of soft lips tipping the pads of his fingers, and nodded in the darkness, despite the futility of the gesture."Yes," he said, after a moment. "I think I would. You? Will you have some cognac with me?"
eyes_adrift: "I'll have a sip or two," Aryol said. He grazed a parting kiss across the major's fingers and gently disengaged himself, moving to the edge of the bed. He felt in the darkness for the light on the bedside table and tightened the bulb. The light came on, illuminating the corner of the room.
Aryol blinked and paused, waiting for his eyes to adjust. He glanced over his shoulder.
"Don't move," he murmured. "I'm not done with you yet."
He got up to fetch the major's valise, finding the bottle of cognac, then retrieving a glass from the cabinet.
"You want it warmed?" Aryol asked.
He didn't drink much himself, he was well-versed in ways a man liked his drink.
nikanor_liadov: "I do," replied Nika, lightly, laying back against the headrest and putting his arms behind his head. He paused, watching the soldier's lithe and naked form stroll over and open his valise with a custom and certainty he liked.
Impunity, he thought, a disarming and warming trait.
"How kind of you to inquire," he murmured, after a moment.
The light pleased him.
The darkness did his friend no favors, except in the sense of tactility- muscles and scent, and thick, soft hair read as well in the dark as not, but while the sensory deprivation had been enjoyable as a lark, he liked being able to see the soldier's physique once more.
A fine physique it was. Indeed.
"You know something of this drill, then," Nika remarked, vaguely. "Of the finer points of liquor. From your...past associations, am I right in assuming?"
eyes_adrift: Aryol nodded."Yeah. I don't really drink, but I've learned a few things."
He paused, looking around the room, spotting a lighter and ration candle on the table by the window. Aryol scooped everything up and moved back to the bed.
"Just by paying attention," he said with a shrug as he sat down.
Aryol poured cognac into the glass with a precise hand, setting it down on the side table. He lit the candle next, and then took candle to glass.
He looked up at the major while he let the cognac warm.
"It wasn't all bad," he said. "I learned about liquor, and how to play chess. I heard a lot of stories about the way things used to be, before I was born. I learned about high literature."
The glass grew warm in his hand, and he set the candle aside. Aryol took a sip of the cognac, closing his eyes briefly.
"That's good," he said. "I can tell by the way it smells. And it tastes smooth, like cream."
He held out the glass to the major. "Cheers."
nikanor_liadov: "Candy in a glass," agreed Nika, luxuriating against the rough sheets.He tilted his head.
"A Russian who doesn't drink? How unusual. Personal preference? Operant conditioning? Or are you just that much of a good nephew to Uncle Lenin?"
eyes_adrift: Aryol flopped back on the bed opposite the major, leaning against his leg. He smiled, lazily, and ran his tongue over his lips."Dreams," he said. "I have strange dreams, when I drink."
He shrugged.
"Disturbing things. I've learned it's just better if I don't. But I love the smell. And the taste, especially on warm lips."
He felt sated, relaxed. He ran an idle hand against the major's knee.
"You came well-prepared."
Aryol let his hand move to the inside of the major's thigh, stroking his fingers against fine, soft skin.
"You have another suitcase under the bed. Heavy, but locked."
He raised a brow.
"How much more liquor did you bring with you?"
nikanor_liadov: The words caused Liadov's mouth to curve, and crease into a faint smile."Ah, that...is not cognac, nor is it vodka."
He paused, tracing a finger along the sniper's collarbone, grazing it down between the minor line that bisected the twin, raised plateaus of his pectorals.
"My entire bar stock is contained within that barkeeping valise," Nika purred. "If I'm soon to be out, I suppose I'll need to deal with the German, nyet?"
eyes_adrift: "That's what I've heard," Aryol said. "I met him the other day."He levered himself up on one elbow and reached out to neatly extract the glass from the major's hand. Aryol took a sip of the warm and buttery cognac and held it in his mouth as he leaned across to bring his mouth to the major's, letting the liquid pass between their lips.
Aryol smirked as he pulled away.
"He offered to get me anything I wanted."
He settled down again, at the major's hip.
"Though he didn't mention how he wanted to be paid. Have you dealt with him before?"
nikanor_liadov: Liadov looked at him sharply, making a small moue of displeasure."No," he muttered, "I haven't yet. Not in that kind of matter..."
He paused, tasting the remnants of cognac on his tongue, as gifted by the offhandedly audacious young sniper.
Nika lowered his eyes obliquely, shifting his shoulders in a slight shrug.
"But I dealt with him in another, personal matter. Settling an issue of estate for a friend. That was...odd, and ultimately unpleasant."
eyes_adrift: Aryol made a face."Unpleasant? I hope that doesn't mean you had to suck him off or something."
He looked at the major sidelong.
"No. I can't imagine you doing that. I got the feeling he would ask for something like that from me, though."
Aryol nodded, sagely.
"He kind of implied it, with the way he looked at me. I've known men like him, the kinds of things they want. Good thing I don't need anything."
He laughed once, quietly.
nikanor_liadov: "No, muzhchik. Nothing like that."Liadov carefully weighed the emotion in the soldier's expression, finding it unsettlingly neutral. Affable.
"You see, I had an obligation to take care of. An executor's duty Captain Mikhail Stoivanovich. An object to deliver, from my dead comrade's house and render unto Krauss," he added dryly. "So I did as I was instructed."
His fingers traveled, idly, down the seam of the younger man's chest, lingering, playing here and there with sweeping fingertips.
"It was a ring. A Ural mountain Alexandrite ring, to be exact. Of a calibre and carat weight...quite possibly unparalleled."
Liadov bit his lip briefly, thoughtful.
"And a photo...in which Tsar Nicholas can be seen wearing the ring. It seems...according to a handwritten diary page that accompanies the photo and the ring, that Mikhail's grandfather himself took the ring from the dead Tsar's finger. He was present at the execution, apparently."
Nika gave a slight grimace.
"He was charmed by it, but the civil conversation quickly degenerated into tiresome second party threats on the behalf of the Flame Patrol, and warnings against the fact that one of my more loathsome collars was now in residence at Groznyj Grad, and free from Magadan."
He paused.
"And that he was intending to murder me as retribution."
eyes_adrift: Aryol listened quietly, absorbing the story. The lightest of creases furrowed his brow, and he rolled to lean on his elbow again, facing the MVD major."Tsar Nicholas' ring? Something like that...is priceless, comrade. There are men that would pay a fortune, just to hold such a thing. To possess a piece of history."
He shook his head.
"But Johann wasn't impressed? His loss, I suppose."
Aryol turned the major's words over, pausing for a few moments.
"So...who is this Magadan collar? The same one that confronted you the other night?'
His frown grew deeper.
"Is he going to give you more trouble?"
nikanor_liadov: Nika laughed, rather aridly."I rather doubt that. But yes...that was the man who I...redressed...the other night in the tank yard."
He paused.
"Lady killer. Literally."
Not ladies, Lasha would have said. Those were whores and shopgirls, Nikash.
And they were, but that was beside every conceivable point.
At least, every point Liadov might have conceded.
Nika shrugged, once more brushing the past aside like and errant, irksome cobweb.
"As for the ring, Krauss was quite taken with it for a moment. It's large, of course, and the gem is brilliant. Shiny things please the German, it seems. Yet I do not think the history was significant to him, as it was to Stoivanich- nor, as he's not a Russian, do I think he could appreciate the rarity of a Ural Alexandrite of that incredible magnitude."
He paused.
"You understand, comrade, the flaws in the composite of the stone render anything over two carats to be extremely uncommon."
eyes_adrift: "It bothers you," Aryol said, after a moment.He studied the major's expression carefully, gaze flowing over the thin press of his lips and set of his shoulders, and the malachite hardness in his eyes.
"Not because it's so precious and valuable. Not because Major Krauss had no care for the history. But because..."
Aryol paused, cocking his head.
"Because your late comrade left something precious to Krauss, and the German disregarded the meaning behind the gift. The intent."
He frowned.
"Why did your comrade leave it to him, then? He must have thought..."
Aryol trailed off, hesitating, thinking, gaze weighted by memory. After a few moments, he looked back at the MVD major with a quiet, solemn regard.
"...that Krauss would have appreciated it."
nikanor_liadov: Nika sighed."I don't know what he was thinking, comrade. At all. I had no idea..."
His lips twitched.
"The German," he began again, hesitantly, "was more than a casual acquaintance to Stoivanich."
Liadov shook his head vigorously.
"He was married, you see, to a wonderful devoshka..."
He broke off, feeling a twinge of hypocrisy, and his indelibly ivory cheeks flushed in a rarified way.
"He had a child, a boy," he added, to differentiate their causes, and explain why he had been taken aback by Molokov's homosexual liaison.
eyes_adrift: Aryol frowned."So your comrade was married, and had a son...and was seeing Krauss on the side?"
He thought about that for a while, turning it over in his mind as if he were examining a chess piece, not focused on the indelible details of what it was, but rather, how it fit on the board.
"It almost sounds like you disapprove, comrade. He shouldn't have been having an affair because he was married?"
Aryol shifted, and drew closer, pushing the major's knees apart with a gentle pressure, settling between them, drawing in the heady musk of their sex. He let his head rest against the major's leanly muscled thigh.
He pondered what the major had said.
"Or because he was married to a nice woman, and had a son?"
nikanor_liadov: "No..."Nika protested, but paused, gathering words like crows to his hand.
"It isn't that I condemn him for that. Many men are unfaithful. Our country is a bastion of mannish children with grabbing little hands and childish entitlement."
The sniper reclined at his loins, gazing up with smoky eyes, discerning and warm in his expression. The weight of his head was sensual and hedonist on the unguarded skin of Liadov's interior thigh.
"Isaev's father is a prime example of the philandering Russian man. Mistresses by the score, despite an avowed devotion to his wife."
He shrugged.
"I disapprove of none of it, comrade. I'm a hedonist by nature and nurture. What I didn't apprehend was that he carried on with his own kind at all...much less with a former Nazi kraut two decades his senior."
eyes_adrift: Aryol nodded, after a moment."All right, then."
He let his head loll to the side, and licked idly at the trails of his own seed that dried on the major's skin in translucent streaks. His thoughts lingered on the problem of the major's dead comrade.
"It sounds like your comrade was well-off, or he would have sold the ring before that. And he was well-positioned, as a captain. Not the type who would really need something from a man like Krauss..."
Aryol pondered.
"And he gave him the ring, which makes it seem like your captain comrade had...a sentiment for him. And that sounds like it's the hardest thing of all to apprehend."
He paused, licking his lips, savoring the pleasant tang of intimate fluids on his tongue.
"I'm sorry about your comrade, though," he said, more quietly. "Did you...favor him, not knowing he might have accepted? Or has there been no one for you but that other comrade you told me about...the bad one?"
nikanor_liadov: Nika laughed out loud."Molokov?" he exclaimed. "God, no. No, nothing like that. It was his wife I favored, and knew socially."
Liadov was caught, rapt, for a moment, observing the brunyet's tongue dance along the dry riverbeds of his own sweet effluvia. A wicked smile graced Nika's lips. He traced a fingertip along the young soldier's mouth, as if savoring the indecency.
"In truth, I expect that he chose me to execute this unorthodox part of his unofficial will because of my position in the Ministry. My ilk has a reputation for corruption, and he trusted my impunity in dealing with a contraband item such as that ring."
His gaze sobered and averted automatically.
"No," he said, belatedly. "I mean to say...there have been many someones. But no one else."
eyes_adrift: "I understand," Aryol said, his words softened by the weight of his own experience. "He's with you, even when he's not." He let a kiss drift across the major's finger, as light as a zephyr.
"That's what you have to erase."
He paused.
"Let me clean you," he whispered, bending his head again.
Aryol's breath warmed the softest part of the major's thigh.
He licked the major's skin more in earnest, though with still-languid ardor. His tongue traced along each viscid route, following the trails from where they curved down to the major's kneecaps all the way up to the joining between crotch and thigh.
He paused, breathing, running his tongue over his mouth.
"You don't have to think of him now, if you don't want," Aryol added, quietly, glancing up to meet the major's eyes.
nikanor_liadov: "I wasn't," Nika returned, under his breath, watching.Not until the sniper had brought him into it.
Ilarion hadn't truly been with him tonight, nor any other night since Liadov had set about crushing his presence into a tiny corner of the universe.
It was more that he hovered. Out of mind, perhaps, by sheer freezing will, but never out of sight.
"He might as well be in Magadan. He's in my Magadan."
Nika paused, shifting, letting his thighs ease open and running indolent fingers through coal dark locks, mouth slipping into a smile with unconscious and sultry ease.
"I won't lie to you. There are times I can't help but remember every detail of him, and his very being possesses my thoughts. Despite and still, I haven't thought of him during our time as intimate strangers, my friend."
eyes_adrift: "Intimate strangers."Aryol tested the word like a new flavor, rolling it off his tongue.
"I like that. It's what we are."
It still thrilled him, that they hadn't exchanged names, but yet they talked like lovers did, about secret things.
He nodded, smiling slightly.
"If it matters, I don't think of anyone else when I'm with you, either."
Aryol shifted between the major's legs so he could reach the other side. He moved his tongue slowly, lingering, in no hurry to be finished, blowing warmth onto wet skin as he passed.
"You're unique to my experience, comrade."
nikanor_liadov: Liadov made a small, low noise of languid content as the sniper's tongue chased over his flesh, seeking salt and essence."It might not matter," he murmured, "but it pleases me to know, regardless."
It did, of course, for his ego was rather heavily invested in the success of seduction- not merely in the most obvious sense, but more in the whole act. Liadov prized his ability to tap into carnal charm, and hold the pleasure and attention of his coital conspirator at vantage for as long as they shared each other's bodies.
This man was no different, in that Nika would have disliked him to be thinking about his lover from the field during such carefully savored congress.
But he also knew he had no legitimate dominion over this unknown man, only a tenuous one by long nights and in stolen minutes.
Liadov raised an eyebrow.
"Your comrade is handsome. I wouldn't blame you for thinking of him."
eyes_adrift: Aryol laughed, dismissive."My comrade is also an asshole. Looks only get you so far in life. You have to have the personality to back them up."
Though it was true Leshovik had his own kind of charm, when he conceded to his own irascible nature. Aryol thought about the image Leshovik had shot into the target at the range, and his chest twinged lightly, in a distant way.
He shook his head slightly.
"I like who you are, comrade. It's you that's important. When we're fucking, my mind isn't on anyone else."
A wicked smile pulled at Aryol's mouth.
"If you turn around, I'll finish," he murmured, his voice lower, more intimate. "I'll suck you clean, and then we can go to bed."
He eased his head up gently, placing his hand on the major's buttocks, encouraging him to turn. Aryol's gaze shaded, becoming more pensive and astute.
"How handsome do you find him? Enough to fuck?"
nikanor_liadov: Nika's eyebrows rose."I certainly wasn't thinking of it like that, that I would ever..."
In truth, he was only being conciliatory. The mention of the comrade's good looks was unloaded and merely meant to inform the soldier that Liadov was not holding him to any standard regarding who might be occupying his thoughts while Nika occupied his bed and body.
There were a lot of good looking soldiers, after all.
"It never occurred to me."
Now that it did, he only frowned.
"Theoretically, yes, I suppose I wouldn't balk, under the right circumstances. And yet, I'm not sure I would ever have come to that on my own."
What was the sniper driving at? His gaze was inscrutable.
eyes_adrift: Aryol's expression relaxed into a small and sideways half-smile."That's all right," he said, quietly. "I was just wondering if that's what you meant."
He shrugged one shoulder.
"I'm enjoying myself with you, comrade. I'd like to keep your company, and not..."
Aryol trailed off, having to pause to find into words. His dark eyes flicked back and forth as he thought about what had happened between himself, Leshovik, and Lynx. How it had turned out.
He levered himself up and forward, and drew closer to the major, so their chests were nearly touching.
"And not fly from your hand to someone else's. If you know what I mean."
nikanor_liadov: Nika smiled faintly, fondly- flicking a strand of hair from the soldier's eyes with the brush of a finger."I'm not sure I do," he said, mild but receptive. "What does your lover have to do with it?"
It was a hilarious thing to say, in hindsight
eyes_adrift: Aryol's smile bloomed, brilliant and shining."Absolutely nothing," he murmured, and leaned forward to bring his lips to the major's in a kiss that was both tender and passionate.
He let it linger for long and luxuriant moments before he pulled back, grinning.
"Now turn over," he told the major, voice low and amused. "I'm going to tongue your ass."
nikanor_liadov: "I don't understand you," remarked Nika, smiling.It was rhetorical.
He turned onto his stomach, gazing languorously over his shoulder at the man who fell to a crouch behind him.
"Why?" he murmured, pushing his tumbled buff-blond mane out of his eyes. "Do you want me to fuck him?"
Nika couldn't see how that made sense.
"Or are you asking if I care that you do?"
He paused.
"I don't, of course," he added. "Those kinds of things are immaterial."
eyes_adrift: Aryol drew his lips down the major's spine."No," he said softly. "I don't want you to fuck him. I don't particularly want to fuck him right now, either. It's just..."
Aryol paused, and kissed across the rounded firm muscle of the major's ass.
"Fucking...that's pretty immaterial. I've fucked a lot of people. Some of them I don't even remember, I'm sure. But being close to someone, spending time, having fun, whether fucking is involved or not...that's different. That's the part I don't think is immaterial."
He pulled back a little, and laid both hands on the major's buttocks, spreading his ass, exposing the rift and furrowed opening, which looked well-used and flushed pink, probably a little raw.
"Are you sore?" he murmured, kissing the tender ring of skin, pausing to soothe it with his tongue.
"I guess what I'm saying is...I don't consider you interchangable with anyone else. You're more than a warm body to me, lover, in spite of how it started. It's your bed I want to be warming at night."
nikanor_liadov: "Pleasurably used, but not in pain," Nika murmured absently.His mind trickled around the sniper's words like honey.
"I've fucked and forgotten more men than I've sent to Magadan," he whispered, darkly.
A small snort, a laugh without humor.
Then he raised his head slowly, spilling tarnished gold back over naked shoulders.
Nika paused, eyes fixed on the wall.
"...I won't forget you."
eyes_adrift: Aryol paused, looking up, staring at the back of the major's head. A quiet fell between them, and the room seemed insulated from all outside sound. He became conscious of the rasp of their skin against the linens as they shifted minutely, the light sighs of air from their lungs. Aryol felt like if he held his breath, he might be able to hear the major's heartbeat.
He leaned forward, and placed one last obscenely intimate kiss, his lips unhesitating, unashamed, moving as tenderly as he had kissed the major's mouth moments before.
Aryol pulled away gently, moving up along the major's body, settling close, chest against back, hips against buttocks.
Face behind neck, one arm slung around the leanly muscled chest.
"Someone left me something, once."
Aryol's voice was soft, almost reverent.
"It was a chess set. Beautiful. The board was made from ebon and bird's eye maple. The pieces were carved from ivory. The man who left it for me was the one who taught me how to play. He had it written that when he died, he wanted me to have it."
He shrugged a little, his chest pressing the major's back.
"But they didn't let me keep it. Only could only have what I could carry, and the set wasn't easily portable."
Aryol sighed, and kissed the major's neck.
"I don't know what happened to it."
nikanor_liadov: "Who gave it to you?" asked Liadov, after a moment. "Your father? A sweetheart? Or..."He trailed off, realizing he probably could guess the answer.
"You like to play chess," he said, vaguely.
Lasha loved chess.
Nika was merely adequate at the game. Despite his lackadaisical mien, it tried his patience just enough that he soon bored of it.
"That's a clever man's game. A devious man's game."
eyes_adrift: "A man I knew, when I was young," Aryol said, with another shrug. "A lover, I guess. I didn't know any better then, to think of him otherwise. I think I'd say something different now."He snorted lightly.
"But I wouldn't be with a man like him now. He reminds me of the German, actually. I'm sure you know the type, comrade."
Aryol let his lips rest against the back of the MVD major's neck, so his words rippled across skin, carried by breath.
"I don't know about devious, but I do enjoy the game."
He paused.
"Do you play? You say that like you don't."
nikanor_liadov: "I used to play with my subordinate," Liadov said, vaguely. "He enjoyed it with a fervency I found endearing."Endearing, yes. Like a shot of pheromone to the groin.
He rarely referred to himself as Captain Isaev's superior. In practical terms, they held all the same responsibilities, signed the same black tickets, but in the hierarchy he out-tipped Ilarion by just that much.
"I'm able to hold my own, but my mind eventually wanders and I'm undone. My attention is too diamond-like and multi-faceted to excel at it. I lack the desire to crush kingdoms and conquer another man's kinghood, I suppose."
Liadov turned his head, gazing obliquely at the man who rested atop and coved to his form.
"I don't conquer that way."
eyes_adrift: "You make it sound so brutal. It doesn't have to be."Aryol leaned to the side to meet the major's halfway gaze, and ventured a faint curve of a smile.
"We should play sometime, you and I. In bed, like this, after we've had sex, naked and marked with each other's seed. It'll be nice. Slow, like making love. Not crushing and conquering, but more...leisurely. Like seduction. Words and glances and touches. Single moves that can level fields."
He reached out and ran a hand through the major's thick hair, now artfully disheveled, erotic to Aryol's eyes.
"You might like it that way," he murmured. "That's how I play. I'm not interested in cutting down the other man. I just want him to yield."
nikanor_liadov: Liadov laughed."Yield, to what purpose?"
He rubbed his nose idly, displacing an itch.
"I'll play with you, comrade. It's not as if I loathe the game."
No, he loathed what the game stood in stead of, between their knees.
Lasha's eyes, snapping and hot blue, as he stabbed at the chastity of the table with each ivory piece, hands expressive in their ambition. Lips parted as he waited for Nika's recompense.
"Seduction," he said, almost to himself.
eyes_adrift: Aryol kissed the back of the major's neck."Yield, as men do, when they let another man penetrate them. For mutual pleasure, but also...to accept, to take in something vital."
He shrugged.
"You're not so different, are you? The way you conquer? Or at least, your result. I imagine you must be direct, though. With clear purpose."
Aryol smiled, remembering how the major had looked at him with those deceptively intent, low-lidded eyes. The proposition had been given and accepted before either of them had spoken a word.
The major had shifted underneath him earlier, Aryol recalled, the thought half-formed, like the flash of a dream image upon waking.
"Am I getting heavy, comrade? Shall we lie on our sides?"
nikanor_liadov: "If you like," Nika said, and they shifted accordingly.The soldier's weight was gratifying, actually, but so was his warmth and the lateral press of his skin.
He felt fucked, thoroughly, and it amused him, as usual.
"I don't need to conquer," he said, softly, easing a smooth palm down the soldier's lightly field-bronzed arm. "I seem to engender surrender."
His hand caressed, idle and sensual.
"I conquer by default, through solitary excellence, and give no thought to the world of mortals, except in as much as I can affect justice."
His eyes gazed out from beneath the soft wave of burnished, tempered gold that threatened to engulf them.
"What about you?"
eyes_adrift: "Me?"Aryol pushed the major's hair back with a lazy hand, exposing a perfectly unlined brow and a gaze that shone with the polished gleam of ivory, though shaded to a fine green.
"I suppose...I like to be a little direct. And unorthodox. I'm not like anyone else, and any man I face will know he faced someone worthy. And from that point...may the best man win."
He laughed then.
"I played my CO a few times. Chess, with blow jobs as a competition piece. Winner got to suck the other off."
Aryol's smile turned broad.
"Sometimes it's not bad to be conquered, instead of always conquering. Gives you a chance to relax and enjoy yourself. But you, however..."
He nodded, half to himself.
"You make yourself sound like a god, in one of those old stories. On high, untouched by men's hands. You're right about surrender, though."
Aryol relaxed against the man, his eyes lowered, but dark, his voice dropping into a low whisper.
"I wanted to surrender to you, that first night, and all of them that have followed."
nikanor_liadov: "I wasn't talking about chess," said Liadov, "and I don't think I'm a god."He instinctively pulled the man close, burying his face in the black locks, inhaling possessively.
Taken aback at his own physical candor.
He looked at the soldier solemnly, with green eyes limned in gold.
"There's strength in surrender, I know that."
Nika paused.
"This is the first time I've ever given myself up to someone who wasn't a stranger in anything but name."
