nadezhda & ruslan v.

Nadezhda

"Wait," she says quietly. "Tell me where." A beat, and an anxious one. "I want to make sure I am not followed."

Just in case.

So he tells her where, and they agree to meet at the corner nearby. Then he gets up, leaving her behind. She does not go with him. She sits a while longer, watching the water, having a few sips more of coffee. She leaves after he's out of sight, packing up her thermos and picking up her purse.

She takes a circuitous route to the address he gave her, walking alone for some time to make sure she is not followed. When she is sure, she comes to the corner where he promised he would wait for her.

Ruslan

He is there, right where he said he would be: waiting for her, smoking one of those foreign cigarettes they both figure. Sucking it down like a true addict who needs that taste, that kick, that drug -- though it would be decades yet before the world woke to the truth of nicotine. Seeing her coming, he drops the cigarette on the ground, grinds it out beneath his shoe.

Beckons her with a tilt of his head. A nondescript gate in a tall, nondescript wall -- encircling a nondescript community of blocky, nondescript buildings. He is taking her through the back, away from the allocator's office. There are a good number of bicycles parked near this back gate, most of them old and rusty. There are a few precious mopeds, surely beloved by someone. These buildings cannot be more than a decade old, but the concrete is already cracked and soot-stained. Laundry hangs from some windows. Somewhere, a rooster crows -- contraband too, as private citizens should not be allowed to own livestock. It's a small enough infraction that no one cares.

Nadezhda

Not at the corner, when he extinguishes his cigarette, and

not at the bicycles, which she glances at with a thought of the pictures she's seen of America, the things they've shown her so she will not betray her shock in person, and

not until they are through the gate, until they are halfway towards his building, but

before they are truly hidden away:

Nadezdha takes his hand. She slips hers into his as they're walking, and if he looks at her she gives him the strangest little smile. She is younger than him. Not by much; a few years. Despite what she is training to do, there's a soft light in her eyes, which sometimes looks like mischief and right now, looks strangely like innocence.

Perhaps it's because somehow, it feels daring and fresh to be holding his hand, to be touching him at all. She can't truly be innocent, not in any of the ways that matter to the world, but all the same, she looks like just holding his hand delights her, surprises her with her own delight.

Her hand squeezes his, ever so slightly.

Ruslan

It's the most absurd thing.

She's going dark in two weeks. They might never -- will likely never -- see one another again. They're hard-bitten and hard-scrabble, half-starved, iron-spined. And yet they're going somewhere together for no reason neither can explain, and she takes his hand.

Gives him that strange, sweet little smile.

Gets a flicker of a glance back. And then: a smile.

There's no elevator in his building. They climb six stories together, the stairwell tight and steep and dark and cold; not even fully closed from the outside but simply half-protected behind a loose lattice of -- yes -- concrete. He shares his floor with four other apartments, each behind an anonymous door marked with a number: 601, 602, 603, 604.

He is 603. His key turns the lock and then the door opens. A tiny living room: one tiny window letting light and fresh air in; a low sofa of heavy wood and thin cushions; an end table with a few approved books. A short hallway to a bedroom so small she can see the narrow bed through the door. Two doors off that hall, one to a cramped kitchen with a grease-sticky stove, one to a barely-furnished bathroom with a squat toilet and a hose on the wall that one suspects to be a sort of rudimentary shower.

Ruslan shuts the door behind them. Somewhat awkwardly, he gestures her toward the couch.

"Would you like tea?"

Nadezhda

He has seen, to some measure, how she must live when she is at her father's home. Her father is not the Chairman, no, but one can imagine she has a small garden. They can afford those clothes she wears, the illegal cigarettes, the radio she swings around as she walks like she could replace it without much trouble. He's been close enough, especially in that narrow stairway, to smell her hair, her skin, the perfume she wears. She wears perfume.

Surely she must look at the place he lives with some distaste. The shoddy furniture, the mediocre kitchen, the stale air, the cramped quarters. But she has been holding his hand all this time, and only slips away as he closes the door. She looks at the window, then at him, and there's that smile again, though a slight ache in her eyes.

"No," she says, simply enough. "You should have it, if you want it," she adds, in case this was impolite. She glances at the couch. "May I sit? I would like to... just talk with you."

Ruslan

"Please," he hastens to extend his open hand toward the couch again as though it were a far finer seat than it is.

While she sits, he goes into the tiny kitchen. He puts a pot on the stove, heats up some water. Returns while it is boiling, hesitating only a moment before sitting on the couch beside her.

There is no television to stare at. Such luxuries do not exist in the homes of ordinary people. Or even slightly extraordinary, low-ranking KGB officers. They have a wall to stare at. A framed photograph of the Red Square in winter. A large crack in the plaster, from which creep the faint intimations of mold despite his best attempts otherwise.

He laughs a little at some memory: "The day I met you, I thought you were trying to obtain forged papers so as to defect."

Nadezhda

Left to her own devices, with him in the other room filling the kettle and lighting the stove, Nadezdha takes the time to look at his bookcase. She tilts her head, her ponytail swinging past one shoulder, observing the titles. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that flashes the intellect she imagines when she looks into his eyes. Nothing that addresses or reveals the sense of honor she is compelled to believe he has. No evidence, even here, of the man she inexplicably believes him to be.

Then she goes to sit. She puts her thermos on a small table nearby. She sets her purse beside it and sits down on the thin cushions of the hard couch, looking again at the window as though such things always draw her attention.

As long as she can remember, windows always have. Windows, bridges, half-open doorways.

But when he comes back into the room she turns to him, and watches him as he comes to sit beside her -- for the third time in their terribly brief acquaintance. Every time, she thinks, it's a little closer. A little less exposed. A little more private.

She cannot entirely believe she held his hand on the bench in Gorky Park, what feels like days ago. She cannot believe she reached for him again just minutes ago, walking into his apartment.

He says what he does. She gives a soft, breathy laugh. "I thought so, when you began following me."

Her eyes drift along his clothes, the wrinkles and folds in the fabric, up to his hand. His face again. She meets his eyes.

"I do not want to defect," she says quietly. "I know that the Soviet Union is imperfect," and her her voice is almost a whisper, "but capitalism is grotesque. America is a nation of slaves, every one of them oblivious to their captivity."

Ruslan

"I know you do not," he replies. This first. This, indubitable.

Then the rest of it: eliciting only a small shake of his head. "I do not know enough to say which is better. But I know this is my home, and so I will defend it."

A brief pause.

"Where do you think they will send you? Cuba? America?"

Nadezhda

"America," she knows this, at least. She should not be telling him anything at all. Still: it comes out of her mouth before she thinks that she should not be telling him. She is getting so tired of questioning everything she says to him. She wants so badly to let herself trust him. She wants it so much it causes an ache in her chest.

But she flashes him a smile. She has that fair skin, those warm eyes, this brilliant smile. "I will fit in very well in Virginia. Yes?"

Ruslan

A smile flickers; he cannot help it. "Yes," he says. "And maybe there they will let you listen to rock-and-roll."

Nadezhda

"I have heard a lot of rock and roll already," she says, half-teasing, but perhaps half-boasting as well.

Her head tips. "Where do you come from? Who are you?"

Ruslan

"Nowhere special," he replies, "and no one special. My father was a Ukrainian farmer. My mother is a proper Russian, a schoolteacher. Retired now. We lived near Voronezh when I was young, my parents and my three brothers and my sisters and I. During the Great Patriotic War we moved to Moscow primarily for safety, and I have been here ever since.

"I joined the army when the Korean War broke out. I was very young then. Had to lie on my paperwork. Upon my honorable discharge, I was recruited by the KGB. But I am not like you. I have not the connections nor the ambition. My tasks have mostly been policing the black markets."

He breaks off. The kettle whistles. He jogs into the kitchen and is gone for a while, steeping tea. When he returns he has the kettle in hand, steam still wisping from the spout. He has no samovar, it seems, but he does have podstakanniki -- cheap tin ones, but they work just as well. He sets two down on the waterstained coffee table and fits each with a glass.

"Are you sure you will not take tea?" he asks. "Have some water at least, if you will not."

Nadezhda

The first thing he says, she can believe, almost. The second thing, she knows is a lie. He is the most special person she's ever met. She wants to tell him so, but the words feel absurd in her own mind, would sound insincere and silly if she said them aloud.

She listens, rapt, as he tells her about his parents, who could never have been wealthy. She raises her eyebrows at his three brothers and however-many sisters. She rests her elbow on the back of his couch, her cheek on her knuckles, as he tells her of how he came to join the KGB. Her eyes flicker with something almost like pain when he says he is not like her.

She looks down at her lap as he goes to the kitchen again. Alone for a moment, she takes a breath, and lays her hand over her heart. She feels it pounding. He may catch a glance of her like that, before she hears him and opens her eyes.

Smiles, when he insists she have something.

"I will drink tea with you," she says, but she seems amused with him.

Ruslan

"Good," he replies, sounding like he means it. He's pleased she will share his tea, and he pours them each a steaming cup. After handing her hers, he disappears into the kitchen again, rummaging around for some time before coming back with a tin of dry biscuits.

She may be right. He might be sitting a little closer every time. They are close enough now that one might not be surprised to find them holding hands in the streets.

"So," he says, picking up his own teacup, "are you going to tell me about you, now?"

Nadezhda

His evident pleasure that she will have a cup of tea with him almost makes her laugh. It wouldn't be cruel laughter, nor mocking; this, like so much this morning, is a feeling that threatens to make her chest cave in. She picks up the cup he gives her. Holds it as he gets up again to retrieve some biscuits.

She notices that he sits a bit closer, as he sat a bit closer when he brought back the tea. As he sat a bit closer at the park than he did in the garden.

Nadezdha takes a sip of the steaming tea, but a small one. The heat of it is bracing. Searing. It focuses her, a bit.

"You already know more about me than almost anyone I know," she reminds him, but they both know that this was accidental: he discovered her great secret because of a random assignment. And that is not all there is to her.

"My father rose through the ranks of government as rapidly as he did through the ranks of his own kind," she answers then, her voice low. "Even I do not know how much influence he truly has, or over whom: what portion of that influence is favors and what portion is... unnatural.

"My mother died having me," she confesses, with a steely sort of resolve in her voice when she says it. "He has never sought another wife. He taught me almost everything I know.

"Normally I would not be a good candidate for the KGB. I am noticeable; I am known. They wanted me to work in intelligence. Only my father's influence made it possible for me to... give my life to my country, as I am doing."

Ruslan

Ruslan's brow furrows. He sets his cup down, turning to look squarely at her.

"Is that wise? If you are not a good candidate, should you take it upon yourself to do this anyway?"

Nadezhda

"It is done," she says softly. "The objections to my assignment have nothing to do with my aptitude, only that a few people in the party will notice I am gone, and would recognize me if our paths crossed."

She watches him, still holding her own cup.

"I have been training for this for years."

A small sip. And then, in English that is pristine, is accented perfectly, seems even more natural to her than Russian:

"I've never doubted doing this. Until now."

Ruslan

The language shift makes him glance at her, then away. He sips at the tea. He is hesitant, and a little ashamed:

"I do not ... speak English very well."

Nadezhda

She reaches for him, then. Not for the first time. Nor the second: this is the third time she has held herself out to him. But this time, she doesn't wait for him to take her hand in return.

She lays her hand on his upper arm, through whatever shirt he wore to the park today. She feels the fabric brush against her fingertips. She thinks she can feel every fiber; her senses are so awake, it makes everything slightly raw, almost painful.

"I said: I have never doubted what I am about to do. Now I do doubt it."

Ruslan

His hand covers hers. His fingers across the back of her hand; his thumb rubbing over her knuckles once, twice.

"I will not ask you to stop what it is you have spent so long preparing for."

Nadezhda

There is no need for her to intensify this touch, just now: to turn her hand and interlace their fingers, to lean into him, to do... anything. The way he strokes her knuckles like that is enough, in this moment. It is almost too much, in some ways: her eyes drift closed for the briefest second, half a breath, then open again.

"Thank you," she says quietly, "Ruslan."

What else can she say, though? It is too late to reconsider what she is doing. Plans have been set in motion that have taken months to prepare; she has given years of her life to this, her father has leveraged immense political capital, and then there is the question they would ask, which she could not answer, and it would get her arrested,

and that is the least of what they might do to her, if she tried to quit.

Quitting is something Westerners do.

It occurs to her, perhaps belatedly, how cruel it is of both of them, to both of them, to even be here. To sit together. To share tea. To go on speaking to one another, touching one another, for what?

For two weeks.

Nadezdha does not remove her hand from his arm, or from under his stroking fingertips. She wants to tell him that he could apply, make his interest known. His pale eyes, his fair skin: they would send him to America, too. Probably the same region, where everything that matters is happening. It would be a few years, it would take time for him to train and be vetted and by then she would be partnered, most likely to a wolf, but,

but,

but --

She does not. She will not ask him to give up what she is giving up. She does not expect to ever see her father again. She does not think she will ever see Moscow again. And all of this, she could live with.

It seems unthinkable to live with this, though. Or rather: without this.

Without him.

So she says the only other thing that she can think of, something she hopes is not a knife to him:

"How long will you let me stay?"

Ruslan

Initially, he doesn't even understand the question. He thinks for a wild moment that perhaps she means -- America? Russia? Then he realizes she means here. His home. Sitting beside him, sharing tea, her hand on his arm, his hand over hers.

Strange that this is where it has led. From a chance meeting on the street to a night at the Chairman's house to an encounter in the woods, to here. Strange that any of this has happened at all; that initial sparking antagonism to this. As though they have some reason to trust one another. As though they have some reason to be drawn to one another,

even if only for two weeks.

"As long as you want to," he replies, a touch hoarse. And his hand closes on hers, gripping her fingers in his palm, pulling her toward him, kissing her fingertips.

Nadezhda

Strange that there was that sparking antagonism in the first place: that he saw her and followed her, and as obviously as he did. That she turned and looked at him, spoke to him, walked brazenly up to him until they were nearly touching.

Strange that they happened to be outside at the garden at the same time, and that she beckoned him over, and that he did not scoff and walk away but came to sit next to her, smoking by the river. Strange that she wanted him to join her somehow, become complicit with her in something. Strange that she was so driven to hold a secret between them for reasons she could not name or understand.

Strange that he unmasked himself when he saw her again.

Told her how to find him.

Strange that she could not wait to find him again, felt compelled to find him again, whatever the risk.

All of it is very strange, and the strangeness only makes her more curious. She watches him take her hand in his and her heart thuds heavily in her chest with anticipation. His lips on her fingers: it's searingly hot, even though she's warmed from holding the tea. She exhales all in a rush when he touches her like that, as if she had been holding all the air in her lungs,

for as long as she can remember.

"I want to know everything about you," she whispers to him, letting him hold her hand as long as he wishes, do whatever he wishes with it. She does not tell him that somehow, she feels as though she already does know him, knows everything about him that matters most. "I want everything."

Her fingertips twitch, slightly, close to his mouth as they are. He feels the tremor, like fluttering wings. "All of you."

Ruslan

He lifts his head to answer her, and her fingers break contact with his lips. Still he keeps holding her hand -- as though that point of contact, now established, cannot be easily relinquished.

"You need only ask," he tells her. "There is very little I would not tell you."

But it's more than that. They both know it. They cannot only be speaking of knowledge, no matter how forbidden or dangerous. If they were, they would not be here, sitting a little closer each time. They would not be here, palms touching, fingers twining. They would not feel like this, as though this were all somehow familiar. Known.

Fated.

"Or give to you," he adds. And also: "Or do for you."

Nadezhda

And she does not draw back: she does not take her hand from him, or move to the other end of the couch, but she should. If there is a compassionate bone in her body, if she feels anything true at all for him, she should not give him anything to miss. It does not matter if she never forgets him. It does not matter if she longs, yearns, wishes.

She still thinks she can protect him from feeling that. And so: she despises herself for not protecting him. Not pulling away. Doing everything she should not be doing, everything that she believes so strongly might one day cause him pain.

The truth is: she could stay up all night just talking to him. Or watching him sip tea. There is something about him she finds delightfully amusing, endlessly fascinating. She feels fondness for him she hasn't felt for anything since, perhaps, an imaginary friend she vaguely remembers having as a very small girl. Not just fondness, though: the same intimacy, the same trust, the same sense that he is always with her, has always known her, will keep all the secrets she whispers in his ear.

But there is also this:

he is a young man, a strong one, with keen eyes that gleam with intelligence as often as they soften with a subtle gentleness. The lines of his face and the breadth of his shoulders draws her to him; at her most base, she wants to see the body under his starched uniform, his rumpled plainclothes. The warmth of his hand makes her pulse skip slightly under the thin skin of her wrists, against the fragile flesh over her throat. When he kissed her fingertips she thought she might make some noise, some vulnerable and raw expression of her attraction to him. She wants to know if he has scars, and where, and she wants to kiss them, as though to mark him as fate did: just as visceral, just as permanent. She wants him to strip her down to bare skin and bared soul; she wants him to see her, all of her, even the things she hides, the pieces of herself she has hidden from any other lover. She wants him inside of her body. She wants to be held in his arms and in his bed. She wants him to hold her in his memory, as if this will grant her an immortality that she knows even her sacrifice for her country could never give her.

It is dangerous for him to tell her he would tell her anything, give her anything, do anything for her, when she wants so much: when she wants everything. It leaves her helpless, in a strange way.

She looks at him like that: like she's helpless.

"Tell me what you want," she whispers. "That is what I want you to do for me, right now."

Ruslan

What he wants.

He looks at her, something naked and vulnerable and honest in his eyes. There are so many things he could say now. He could tell her he wants to see her in those head-turning American clothes again. He could tell her he wants to see her out of her clothes, any and all of them. He could tell her he wants to turn back time, sneak into that kitchen, steal that vodka with her and drink it.

He could tell her so many things. But what occurs to him in the end, what occurs to him immediately, unbidden, and lingers on in his mind until at last he speaks it, is this:

"I want more time with you."

And it's not fair. He knows it. He winces even as he says it, sighing, looking away. His hand starts to release hers but then he changes his mind. Holds it, turning back to her.

"I know that is cruel to ask."

Nadezhda

She smiles. Even the smallest of her smiles, even when she isn't flashing it with a toss of her hair, seems lit from within. Lights up her whole face. Warms her eyes. And when he says he wants more time with her, and she can tell that it is the unvarnished truth from his mind, it makes her smile like that.

Fades, slightly, when he looks away. She set down her tea already, but her free hand is still warm from the cup when she reaches out, touching his jaw and turning him back to her. He changed his mind, was changing it, but she didn't wait for that.

It takes her a moment to answer. She does not want to simply say something pretty or something vaguely romantic. She wants to tell him the truth, just as raw as his, just as -- perhaps -- cruel.

But honest. Which is what matters.

"You could apply to the program," she says quietly, as though someone might be listening. "Indicate your interest. You are already KGB; you will just need to be trained when you are accepted. They would put you in America. Near me. I am sure of it.

"It would be a few years," Nadezdha whispers. "But you could find me there."

She believes he could find her anywhere.

Ruslan

Almost in answer, a glimmer in his eye. A spark of something catching -- an idea, a fire. He blinks. He thinks about this. He huffs a little, self-deprecating, and then he finds her eyes again.

"And in the meantime? Will you write to me? Or would we simply ... wait?"

Nadezhda

Nevermind that her father is trying to see her partnered with a Garou, that he is focused on securing the next generation even if it comes about through duty and little else. Nevermind that Garou, traditionally, do not see mateship as a casual thing one performs, a costume one can put on and take off at whim, and nevermind that any wolf she is paired with is not likely to share her willingly.

No matter how little she loves him. No matter if she loves him at all.

"I would try," she says. It is the honest truth. She will try to write. She will try to wait.

Her hand is still on his jaw. Her thumb moves over his chin.

"In some ways I feel as though I have always been waiting." She swallows. "When I was much younger, I thought I was waiting to grow up. When I was a little older, I thought I was waiting for my mother to come back, and that it was just a delusion. Then I thought I was waiting for my life to begin, for my purpose to reveal itself to me."

She laughs softly, shaking her head a little. "I waited for the KGB to accept me. I waited for training to begin. I waited for my mission. I have always been waiting. It was unbearable."

Their tea is growing cold.

"Now I know. So I can bear it."

Ruslan

Her hand is still on his face. Feels natural there, as though she has touched him like this a thousand times before. Feels natural for him to turn and to kiss the heel of her hand. Doesn't even have to take his eyes from her face; doesn't have to cover her hand with his. Like he's done this a thousand times before, too.

"I have felt ... uncertain at times," he confesses. "Incomplete. Unfulfilled and aimless. Maybe I have been waiting too. Only in a different way."

He does cover her hand now. And kisses it again, as though this is what he will allow himself: innumerable touches of his mouth to her palm, and none at all of his mouth to hers. Perhaps he thinks he will dishonor her. Perhaps he doesn't want to pressure her, leave her with something that will stand in conflict with what her father has arranged.

The truth is he was not lying when he said it earlier: he expects nothing from her. He wishes and wants quite a lot, but expectations: he has very few. He has none at all.

"I will try to speak to my superiors," he promises. "And I will try to write, too."

Nadezhda

Nadezdha sighs softly as he kisses her hand again, and again, as he promises to speak to those above him try to find a way to write to her.

She does not know what to say. But she cannot bear to leave.

"Will you hold me?" she asks.

Ruslan

He doesn't say a word to that. Doesn't need to. He puts his arm around her, ferociously; pulls her against the side of his chest.

Cups her head with his free hand. Cradles it, his fingers in her hair.

Nadezhda

They are so close already: her hand on his face, held in his hand. Her hand on his shoulder, still, like she's held there by some sort of magnetism of the spirit. So he does not have to move very far to bring her to him, to wrap her in his arms. She is not expecting the ferocity of it -- he seems so calm, so unflappable -- but she is not afraid. She welcomes it. It is her first real sign that he feels all of this every bit as strongly as she does, no matter how careful they are both trying to be, no matter how much restraint they place on their emotions.

It is for that reason, and another, that relief floods through her when he pulls her to his body. She leans into the embrace, curling somewhat against him to rest her brow against his neck, their knees and legs tangling. At first she feels like she might tremble herself to pieces, but then -- after just a moment -- she exhales. Her shoulders round downward. Her spine relaxes. She allows her eyes to close.

His hand disturbs the careful ponytail her hair is in, but not terribly: the narrow ribbon tying her hair back loosens, and his fingers find her scalp. She feels calmer than before. She thinks:

I could stay like this forever.

The thought doesn't even feel absurd to her.

Her hand slips from his hand, from his jawline. It comes to rest gently on his chest. She sighs again, softly, and shifts the incline of her head. Nuzzles his throat, her nose against his skin, slowly, as though she is refamiliarizing herself with a scent that she couldn't possibly already know.

Ruslan

It makes no sense. That she feels so right. That this feels so familiar. He has a keen, rational mind; he can make no sense of this at all. Any of it.

But he doesn't question it. They hardly have time for such luxuries, after all. And perhaps in the end it is as she said: she asked it of him, and so he embraced her. Without a second thought.

She sighs. She nuzzles him. His fingers trail through her hair; he works that utilitarian ponytail loose. A moment goes by, two. They explore each other like this, with an animal heaviness, with an animal innocence.

Then, after a time, he tips her chin up. He kisses her, very softly, very slowly.

Nadezhda

Her hair comes loose. He doesn't even have to tug on the ribbon; it falls open as he touches her hair, her scalp. It drops away as her hair falls, thick and dark and soft around his fingers. She sighs against his neck as he strokes her hair, and her lips brush over the spot made warm by her breath. It cannot be accidental; it also cannot be helped.

Her asked to meet her again, and so she met him again. She asked him to hold her, and so he holds her. They behave as though they cannot say no to each other, cannot bear to let the other one down. Her decision never seemed so terribly painful, until she had to tell him about it. Until she had to see the look in his eyes, hear the sound of his voice. There was no reason to think he would be upset; she knew, all the same, that it would hurt him.

If he had asked anything of her in the woods, she would have given it to him.

If he would only ask her --

but he doesn't.

He touches her jawline, and then her chin. He lifts her face to his and her eyes open slowly. Even before he kisses her, her lips part. She kisses him in return, keeping her eyes open as long as she can, because she wants to know even what he looks like when he's kissing her, because she wants to commit everything to memory.

But after a few moments, she can't. She makes a small, soft sound against his lips, her eyes falling closed yet again. Her hand on his chest smooths open, touching as much of him as she can in that one singular, burning point of contact.

Ruslan

The fabric under her hands is cheap, utilitarian, rough. He, like so many other foot-soldiers of the Soviet forces, covert or otherwise, come from humble roots. It's only partly the effect of a system that so blatantly favors the proletariat; some of it is merely the fact that those of more privileged backgrounds rarely willingly place themselves in danger.

She's an exception to that rule. She is something else altogether, unexpected, unplanned-for.

In his apartment now nonetheless. In his arms, her mouth as willing as his. Her hand opening over his chest, pressing through his shirt; an impression of heat against heat. That soft little sound has him reacting, deepening that kiss, pressing into that hand. His hand in her hair stroking now, fingertips massaging her scalp. His mouth exploring, pausing, returning.

It is a slow kiss. It takes its time, nevermind that they have none to spare. When it tapers off, his breath is soft against her lips; his eyes are closed.

"Stay," he whispers. And a moment later, "Stay the night with me."

Nadezhda

Today she is not wearing cashmere. She's not wearing some silky dress with a tulle underskirt. Her clothing is much like his today, even if it is a disguise of sorts. They both cover themselves in roughness, whether by necessity or otherwise, but there are these intimations of softness underneath: her hair, his chest. The sound she makes. The way he touches her.

Outside the sun still burns. In here, he says a word that makes her heart stop for a moment. The tip of her tongue has an answer, but he echoes himself before she says anything: stay the night. And it doesn't matter what time it is, and -- right now -- it does not matter to her if someone might wait for her elsewhere, if she is supposed to be someplace at some time.

She only nods. "Yes," she whispers back to him, leaning towards him for another kiss, her hand moving up his chest to his neck, fingers spreading over his short-cropped hair. "Yes, Ruslan. Yes."

Ruslan

Maybe he did mean something else.

Maybe he meant what he said: stay.

Maybe he just remembered it's impossible. And that he promised he would not ask it of her. Would not ask her to abandon her ambitions, her drive, her hopes and dreams of making a difference no matter the shape or life she was born to.

So it's something else now. Stay the night. Which in and of itself seems a lot to ask of a woman in whose company he's spent perhaps a cumulative hour, in a society where such things are still frowned upon, when they both know her comings and goings are monitored.

She agrees nonetheless. She agrees without hesitation, without so much as a thought. And he meets that kiss the same way, unhesitatingly and thoughtlessly, hungrier this time.

Nadezhda

There is little pretense, now. The way he said that word the first time -- and the second -- tells her what he feels. The way he leans into her tells her what he wants. It could be that tomorrow she'll have cause to regret this, either because she is trusting him too easily, because he is lying too well, or

simply because she cannot stay.

But for now, right this moment, all she feels is relief. She sighs when he kisses her, but it's a hard sound, a yearning thing. Her hands move to his face, holding him close as he kisses her again, and again,

again.

--

They have no time, and yet they take what they have. Those kisses go on a very long time before she touches his chest again, her fingertips seeking the buttons of his shirt. Even when she has it open, she explores more than devours, learning about him through touch alone at first, before she opens her eyes and looks down, watching her fair hand run over his slightly darker skin. Before she bows her head, kissing him over his heart. Soon after, he invites her to his bedroom. That narrow bed, but with a door, with his scent on the pillow and in the sheets.

There are tremors through them, but not from fear. It's the effort of restraint, of not rushing this, of not being so overwhelmed by hunger that they do not savor this. So for an absurdly long time they're standing there beside his bed, holding each other. Kissing. More. She unfastens his belt. He unzips her skirt, pushing it off her hips. His fingers slide over her thighs, a shudder going through him when she scrapes her teeth over his neck.

So they undress each other, slowly at first, but this is the first degree of restraint they lose. When they are down to their undergarments he lifts her against him, lays her body down on his bed, her hair spread over his pillow. She wraps her arms around him, arches her back as he reaches behind her, taking off her bra, helping her out of it before cupping her breast to his mouth. The tenement walls are thick but not thick enough that they don't try to be quiet; moans are stifled against skin, groans bury themselves in kisses.

Ruslan

That room of his is bare walls and a single cloudy window. That bed of his is narrow and thin, squeaks when he lays her down. Those sheets smell like him, will smell like her after. Those hands of theirs are unsteady and hurried as they strip each other out of their clothes, leave the articles strewn here and there.

Not a lot of color in their attire today. Greys and browns and blues and blacks, coarse fabrics on the ground.

Skin's soft, though. And warm. His hands are all over her. He stays close to her, his body alongside hers; rubs his palms over her abdomen, her breasts. Sucks at her nipples but only for a moment, because then she's moaning and he's covering her mouth with his, kissing the sounds out of her mouth only to give it back to her, lower.

His headboard is old lacquered wood. Knocks against the wall when they move, so they take turns holding it in place. Leave handprints in steam on that cheap glossy surface. He can't seem to stop kissing her. Kisses her when he enters her; grips her hand, too, until she works herself free and wraps her arms around him instead. He muffles groans against her shoulder. She grips at his back, solid muscle and bone beneath skin.

They don't bother getting under the covers. Everything about their life is hidden, secret, dangerous; even the sounds they make must be hidden. But their bodies, together, behind closed doors: this much they don't have to hide. This, they leave in the open, in broad daylight, unashamed.

Nadezhda

It feels more private in here. And with that privacy comes a shamelessness and openness that feels all too right to her -- with him. He can see, up close, how she struggles not to cry out when his hand descends, when he touches her. He can watch her turn her face into his pillow, her cheeks flushed red, her breath catching as she fights the longing to groan aloud.

Every time one of them turns over, or he makes her arch, or they half-laughingly divest one another of their very last scraps of clothing, that goddamn headboard bangs against the wall. She whispers before kissing him: We will have to do something about that goddamn noise.

He presses his hand against it, holds it to the wall. She has a sudden, flashing image of him doing something similar while touching himself, jerking himself off in this bed, and it fills her with almost absurd lust

and a faint, vague ache in the back of her heart.

When he presses his cock against her, he is holding the headboard and she is holding onto him, her hand in his hand and her hand on his back, her legs wrapped around his waist. He is kissing her and so she lets herself cry out into his mouth, moaning as he fills her.

Both her hands are on his lower back, his ass, when he starts moving in her. It doesn't take long before he forgets to hold the headboard still; she is so soft. So wet. So hot. His hands grasp at the bedding underneath her body; she takes one hand from his skin to hold the headboard still, her lips exhaling the most encouraging little sighs and murmurs of enjoyment.

--

In the end, there are a few minutes where the stupid bed is making more noise than either of them. They are clutching at each other, fucking hungrily, athletically on his clattering bed. He is muttering encouragement in her ear; she is holding him tighter and tighter the closer she gets. He kisses her when she comes because she starts crying out; he buries his face against her neck when he comes, stifling a long, loud groan.

Afterwards: he keeps fucking her a little, slowly, like he can't quite stop. She shudders on each slow thrust, squirming underneath him.

Sweaty, panting, they wait a while for their bodies to cool and their weariness to evaporate. He rolls slightly to the side and dozes, his brow against her temple, his arm wrapped around her. Not for long. She stirs; he watches her. She looks at him, and strokes her fingertip over his arm, and he kisses her again,

and this time she holds the headboard, pinning it against the wall to brace herself while she rides him. Her hair is thick, wild, falls around her face as she looks down at him, haloed by that cloudy light coming from his window.

She looks lost in this. In looking at him. In being with him. In how she feels. It's the sort of being lost that makes one present: standing in an unfamiliar wood and looking up at the sunlight, hearing every sound in the underbrush, feeling the varying caress of the wind, knowing the wood as intimately as a lover though you have never seen it before, will never see it again.

That is the kind of lost she is, right now, watching him as she fucks him, as he fucks her back, as they fuck

in his narrow, thin bed,

in his cold, barren room,

the only place on earth where they could have been, could be, are now, will always be when she thinks of him.

--

It is later, now. Much later. Eventually they slept: cat-naps, really, pressed together on his bed, a rough, often-washed sheet thrown over their cooling bodies, holding each other because there really isn't space to do anything else.

He wakes before she does. She sleeps so heavily, like a child or an animal, her breath steady and deep. She looks like she feels safe here. She looks like she belongs here. Like she belongs to him. Like she always has.

It's awful.

Ruslan

It is later now.

The light that comes through the cloudy window has changed. It is slanted now, and more diffuse than it had been. Perhaps it is overcast outside. Perhaps a summer storm gathers. Perhaps it will rain tonight, overnight, and perhaps rare thunder will crack overhead.

Her father is of Thunder. So too is she.

He does not know these things though -- Ruslan, her lover. Her lover of a few hours. Her lover of many lifetimes. Looking at her now, he would suspect her of being innocent and fragile, and yet he knows better. There is an undeniable strength in her. There must be, for her to do what she does. Risk what she does. Sacrifice what she does.

He stirs; disentangles from her gently, pulls himself up to sit in bed. His bare back presses the headboard against the wall again. A quiet thud. He wants a cigarette, because that is what addiction does to you. He wants her, because that is what love does to you.

After a while he pushes the thin and lumpy covers back; gets out of bed. He walks naked into the kitchen and rummages around for a while. He has a very small refrigerator in there, which was nonetheless quite the splurge when he bought it. It is several years old now and has developed an unpleasant rattling hum whenever the compressor cycles up, but it still works. He gets some frozen pelmini from the icebox and sets a pot of water on the single burner. While the water boils, he fills a glass from the tap and downs it. Then a second.

The third glass is not water, but vodka. Not the expensive stuff they might've stolen from the Chairman's office but something plainer, cheaper, just as strong. After a moment's thought he pours a second glass; sets it on the counter beside the stove.

The water is beginning to boil. He drops the pelmini in, salts the water, and waits. The smell of food, simple and hearty, begins to fill the small apartment.

Nadezhda

When he wakes, there is no hope of not stirring her. The thin mattress creaks and shifts; the headboard claps once against the heavy wall. She makes a sound and grumbles in her sleep, burying her face a bit more in his pillow, but she doesn't wake. She looks less serenely beautiful in her new position, tangled in his sheet and breathing into his pillowcase, hair stuck to her cheek, but still:

like she's his. Like she belongs right here, sleeping while he has a cigarette. Or reads. Or just watches her for a while, his body calmed but alert, aroused but momentarily satisfied. She seems so comfortable here that even when he gets out of bed, all she does is mumble and groan again, rolling into the warm depression left by his body, hugging the sheets and pillow around herself while he goes to the kitchen.

Nadezdha wakes only a little later. She doesn't startle, or forget where she is, and notices that. She smells him still in the bed, but mostly now she smells the two of them, and sex, and her own sweat, and she's a bit filthy and yet her limbs feel deliciously supple with relaxation. She can hear him in the kitchen, and rolls onto her back, looking up at the ceiling. She thinks of how he came inside of her. Twice. She closes her eyes and exhales. Come what may.

Her hand rests on her abdomen for a moment. She drowses while he boils water and, she imagines, prepares food. She discovers she's hungry but she doesn't leave the bed yet. She thinks of getting pregnant. She thinks of fucking him again. She is going to spend the rest of the day with him, and that makes her smile. She is going to stay the night with him. She doesn't think about what happens tomorrow. She has no idea.

The thought of hurting him breaks her heart. She didn't think her heart was capable of breaking.

Eventually she gets up. He'll hear that. Hear her shuffle to his bathroom. See her when she comes out, wearing the shirt he had on earlier, before she unbuttoned it and took it off him. She's finger-combed her thick hair, but it is still tousled and unkempt when she meets him in the kitchen, wrapping her arms around his naked body and smiling.

"Vodka," she says when she sees, smells it. It makes her smile. She picks it up and takes a sip, never quite letting go of him. "After, not before? You are a gentleman."

Ruslan

Cynical and stoic as he so often is, he was surprisingly open in bed. Went at her insatiably, his hands all over her skin, his mouth all over her body. Second time around he was rather vocal; whispered filthy encouragements while she rode him, while he cupped her breasts in his hands, while he pulled her down to kiss her, ferociously, while he fucked up into her with that same intensity.

Third time and he said nothing at all. Just watched her, breathing with her, groaning with her, the both of them tired by then, lazier, closer. Afterward he pulled her close, her back to his chest. They slept a while.

Now here they are. It's getting near evening and he is boiling pelmini. The fat little dumplings are already afloat, though stuffed with more filler than meat. He is watching the stove and sipping his vodka; hears her in the bathroom but doesn't hear her approaching until her feet whisper over the kitchen floor. He startles a little when she touches him, but relaxes scarcely a second after.

His hand covers hers. Smooths up her forearm and back again. She reaches around him for his vodka and he picks up the second glass, trading her after her first sip.

What she says makes him smirk quietly. He downs the last of his vodka all in one gulp as though to prove her wrong, then picks up a cheap serving spoon and stirs the pelmini to keep them from sticking.

"And feeding you too. I am going above and beyond." He shakes a little more salt into the pot. "Do you want water?"

Nadezhda

Somehow it surprised her and did not surprise her, all at once, the way he was once the bedroom door was closed. He delighted her. He made her arch. He held her, so close to him, when he loved her the third time. She felt safe. She cannot remember the last time she felt safe in a man's arms. She wasn't sure that was a thing you were meant to feel.

So now she holds him, terribly affectionate, nuzzling at him while she sips vodka, her fingernails scritching gently at his abdomen. She nuzzles his neck and watches him down his vodka, unaware of how much he has already had. She smirks, her eyes twinkling.

"You are a true lover," she murmurs, meaning for it to sound teasing but it comes out sincere and soft. She kisses his shoulder, trying to dispel the ache that entered her when she said it. "Soon. First I am hungry."

She sighs, and stays against him, resting her head on his arm while he stirs, swaying a bit in the kitchen. "Am I making it difficult for you?" she asks him.

She means the cooking.

Surely she means the cooking.

Ruslan

"You are never any trouble to me," he answers, so quietly and immediately that it may almost seem offhand. It is not. Whatever she meant, that is how he interpreted it, and how he chooses to answer.

He stirs. He sets the spoon aside. He thinks about it, then qualifies it:

"Well. You did nearly get me arrested for stealing the Chairman's vodka, so perhaps that is not altogether true."

The pelmini are done. He turns the stove off, reaching up over it into the little cupboard where he stores his flatware. She can see a small stack of plates there, different shapes and sizes, no two alike. A few cups as well; a bowl or two. Most are made of metal, dented and dinged but nearly indestructible.

He retrieves a single large plate, which one imagines they will share. The pelminis steam as they are plated. He picks up his glass, the bottle.

"Come," he says. "Let's go back to bed."

Nadezhda

Her eyes close. She rests the tip of her nose on his skin, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. Her arm encircles him, her hand flattening out over his belly as though she could protect him. She finds that she loves him so. She finds that it is a powerful, rising feeling inside of her, as heavy as the snow in winter, as strong as the wind, hot as the sun. It moves through her like a river, carries her like a horse, and she finds she is holding him far too tightly for a casual post-coital meal.

It takes her a few moments to open her eyes, and take a breath. He is saying something about vodka, and she huffs a laugh. She kisses his cheek, and slips away while he finishes making her this bachelor's dinner. Sips her vodka. Takes the bottle from him so he doesn't spill their food. Saunters back to his bedroom a step or two ahead of him.

Her mind is elsewhere. It is conflicted. Despite that, however, he learns:

she has a wolfish appetite, tucking into the dumplings shamelessly and mostly with her fingers as soon as they are sitting on his bed again.

Ruslan

He senses -- something. Something inside her, expressed mutely only in that too-tight embrace. He doesn't complain. He doesn't ask, either. He suspects the answer will only cause pain.

So they carry their simple fare back down the short hall to the bedroom. Everything he owns is small, rundown, cheap; but then, that could be said for the majority of the country. The bed squeaks again as they take to it, and he sets the dumplings on the sheets between them. While she eats, he picks his underwear off the ground and steps into it, a small nod to modesty.

For a while, neither speaks. They share their meal with an unabashed hunger and ease. Though hardly gourmet, the dumplings are filling, and he cooked a lot of them. They both eat their fill.

He returns to the kitchen as they finish, bringing back cloth napkins, glasses of water. Handing her a glass, he asks, "Do you want to do it? Go to America."

Nadezhda

Nothing about this seems to dismay her: his small, run-down apartment. His narrow bed. His frozen food. His cheap vodka. She seems like any girl of his own class -- though class isn't supposed to exist anymore, isn't supposed to matter. And that's familiar and comfortable and comforting: the way she folds herself onto his mattress where they just spent half the day fucking and sleeping, reaching for dumplings to eat with her fingers, sipping vodka and pouring more into his glass

like they do this every weekend. Like they've been doing this for years.

Still: there is something behind her eyes. Something that was there in the way she kissed his cheek, something about the way she laughed and her eyes didn't sparkle quite as much. There's a tension in her. But still: she eats like she sleeps and fucks, animalistic and hungry. She touches him at random, cupping her hand over his knee, stroking his cheek as if he has a loose hair, wiggling her toes against his ankle.

When she's satisfied, again, she leans against the headboard, drinking the vodka he gave her. She stays there until he comes back, giving her a cloth to wash up with a bit, giving her water. She drinks that, too, and uses it as a way to occupy herself while she thinks of his question.

It's hard to look at him.

"I did," she admits, finally. "I had no doubts, until --" she pauses. She wonders, herself, when things changed. Her brow furrows a bit, as she stares at the half-full glass of water in her hands. "Until I saw you in the woods at training." Her dark eyes lift to his. "And now? Now I do not know what I want."

But that is a lie. He can hear it in her voice; she can hear it, too, even as she's saying it.

Ruslan

He reaches over to her. His palm cups her jaw, her face. He touches her with a familiarity one might think he hasn't earned yet, except both of them know he has. Somehow, they've both earned it for one another.

"Yes you do," he says gently. An echo: "And I would like it if you told me what it is you want."

Nadezhda

It speaks not to their growing closeness but their growing faith in that closeness -- however strange it is -- that he does not let her say this without pressing back. It speaks to how she feels for him, and how he makes her feel, that when he touches her face, she closes her eyes and leans heavily into his palm, incalculably comforted by the contact.

A few weeks ago, she would not have had these thoughts she has now. She was proud of what she was doing. She was devoted to the cause, though perhaps not the most zealous of her kind. She knew she could do great things, worthy things, if she took this path. She did not want her purpose in life to be like her mother's: mated to a Shadow Lord, mother of at least one child, only to die, mourned for love but not for any accomplishment. The most she could hope for, in that life, would be to at least have a trueborn child. A cub.

This gave her something else. Something that would last long, long after she was gone. Something that wasn't just about her biological capabilities. Even if she wasn't known, was never mourned, she would know one long-distant day that she was leaving a life that had meaning and purpose to the whole world. And all of it gave her comfort, gave her certainty. They were worthy goals, worthy things to yearn for in anyone's life. It isn't even that they mean any less, now - it's that now she wants something else, too. Something that she is not sure she can live without.

Her cheek in his hand, she opens her eyes and looks at him again. "Everything I wanted before. But now... not to leave you." She breathes in deeply, having said it, and sighs against his wrist, nuzzling his hand. A weight seems to shift from her shoulders. He can love her or reject her now. It is said, and it is true. "I want to never leave you."

Ruslan

Perhaps he should be gratified. Surely that's a balm for the ego: determined little thing like her, giving it all up after one tumble between the sheets with him. Only that's not what it is at all, and he's not like that either. What she says, and the sheer nakedness of her truth, makes him look away; sigh. His hand is still on her face, though, his thumb stroking absently over her skin. A moment later he turns back and kisses her, his bare shoulder leaning into hers; his shirt, which is currently her shirt, between them.

"I cannot tell you what to do," he says. "I have not the courage, and I am afraid you will come to resent me either way. But whatever you choose, I will accept. And even if you do go, I will try to follow."

Nadezhda

Her forehead wrinkles slightly when he says he hasn't the courage to tell her what to do. The furrow deepens when he says she might resent him. Nadezdha scoots down in his bed a bit, leaning against the pillow, reaching up to touch his face. She strokes his jawline, over and over, as if the very shape of his face is a wonder to her.

"Would you go so easily?" she asks him. "Leave your family, your life, everything?" This is only half a question: he can hear that she knows that's what he is saying, what he means. And it isn't even entirely that she doesn't understand why. But what he hears in her voice is... worry, for him, and all he might lose because of her.

Ruslan

They both seem so very taken with one another's faces. Cannot seem to stop touching, stroking, memorizing. He leans into her touch as she did into his. His eyes close for a moment, a pure animal enjoyment.

And open. He laughs a little, wry. "Wars do not last forever," he says, "even those that seem they must. If I must follow you I will. If they let me, I will. And when the war is over we will come back here together."

A small pause.

"Or," he says softly, "if I am not able to follow you, then you will come back to me."

Nadezhda

He has such faith in this. She looks up at him with a faint smile. It hurts -- it hurts perhaps more than anything she's ever felt before -- but he speaks with certainty, and she cannot help but believe him.

"I love you," she says to him, very quietly, and one might think she doesn't entirely mean to say it, but that would not be giving her credit where it is due. She knows what she is saying. She is choosing to say it. She does not apologize for the strangeness of it, or for saying it when they have only met but a few times. And not only because she doesn't think he would not judge her; she does not apologize because she means it. And because she wants him to know.

"Ya lyublyu tebya," she repeats, just as soft.

Ruslan

That flicker of wry laughter again, dying into a small smile of his own.

"It does not make sense, does it?" he asks, but it's rhetorical. He finds her hand, covers it with his. There on the bedsheets between them. There on the bed they've so recently shared.

"Ya lyublyu tebya," he echoes.

Just as soft.