singillatim | these drugs are fucking with my head / i think my mailman is a fed

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these drugs are fucking with my head / i think my mailman is a fed

Who: Vasiliy + others!
What: Non-event catchall.
When: Throughout May.
Where: Around Milton.

Content Warnings: Flashbacks to torture/the Yezhovschina/participation in atrocities/execution, severe PTSD episode/partial dissociation, others TBA.

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[ Whatever he was doing before everything falls to pieces—he doesn't remember, he doesn't remember anything in this moment—it stops entirely the moment someone bangs on the cabin's front door. His body goes stock-still. His throat suddenly ceases to make sound; his pulse accelerates until he feels sick in a matter of seconds; fear flashes through him, mortal terror, cutting off any higher thought processes.

They're here. Somehow, one of the arrivals knows what he did; there are other Russians here, maybe it was that doctor from the mines, maybe someone found out, he's going to die again, the incident in the mines wasn't real but this is. He mechanically reaches for the gun on the side table and cocks the hammer, breathing fast, breath raw in his throat. He has to speak, he has to keep Kostya from letting them in, even if it won't matter in a few moments, even if they're just going to kick the door in anyway— ]

Don't open the door, Kostya, don't open the door— Go, you have to—you have to go, go through the bedroom window—

[ The shift is— weird. Jarring, for how abrupt it is. Konstantin almost doesn't know how to process it at all, and probably mostly because he's never seen Vasiliy act this way.

It's clear that something's wrong, but he can't fathom what that could possibly be. The other man's acting like he knows exactly what it is, though, and that's the only clue; maybe Vasiliy glimpsed them through the window? Knows it's some danger? The Darkwalker? No, that's stupid, it wouldn't knock, it has to be a person banging like that, but who would elicit this kind of response in Vasya? He looks.... absolutely terrified. He's reaching for his gun, instructing him to go, to run away, make an escape.

Konstantin's heart kick-starts and he's moving but not away. No, he's taking a cautious step closer to Vasiliy, staring at the door as he lowers his voice to a hush. The younger man's breathing is... wrong, too fast, like he's panicked. Something's very, very wrong, and it frightens him to see such a change in his housemate. ]

Vasya — what's wrong? It's probably just someone from town. They might need help.

Go!

[ His voice breaks as he reiterates the command, unable to devote even an ounce of conscious thought to modulating his tone, to appearing any less terrified than he is. ]

It's not, it's— [ He takes a shuddering breath and shuts his eyes tightly for a split second, bracing against the sickeningly fast racing of his own heart. It's hard to speak, and he can't get up, can't drag Kostya elsewhere or take himself away from the danger. He just sits there, frozen, the short barrel of his revolver shaking with the tremors of the hand wrapped around its grip in the empty space between his knees. He's paralyzed with fear, more completely than he's ever been in his life.

He can't think clearly enough to explain to Kostya why his theory just wouldn't be, why he knows with certainty that his own life is in grave danger, and Kostya's by consequence—even though the knocking has stopped, and—were he in any state to notice—the dog has stopped barking outside, he can tell his own cognitive abilities have only further declined. He doesn't think he was this scared when he was waiting to die the first time.

It's all over. It's all coming crashing down and all he can think about is how much he doesn't want to die again. ]

You have to go, Kostya, you have to go—

[ 'Go!' The command feels more like a plea, the single word breaking in half, cracking, desperate. Konstantin is wholly and utterly baffled, but through the surprise something else claws its way forwards — a fear of his own. Not even necessarily for whatever unseen phantom has spooked his housemate, but for Vasiliy's reaction.

He's seen him affected by things, of course. Vasya is an outwardly calm man, controlled in a particular way that has startled even Konstantin at times — most notably in the face of his own situation — but he's not... inhuman. (No, he's very human, human and warm and familiar.) But Konstantin has never ever seen him behave this way. He can't seem to move, just sits there unmoving — no, not fully unmoving, because Konstantin can see the way that gun shakes in his grasp, and alarm is blaring like an emergency siren within him.

He blinks, remembering what he was doing just before — making tea, he's setting a cup down, he's moving to where Vasiliy is and sits down right beside him. The other man is terrified, and Konstantin's reaching out both hands to find Vasya's shoulders, carefully but with no hesitation, no reluctance. He grasps onto them, gentle and firm in equal measure: not aggressively, but securely. ]

Vasya — hey. Hey, look at me.

[ Can he even see him right now? Can he see anything but his terror? What's doing this to him? Is it this place? ]

[ He's aware, very aware, of the warm weight of the other's broad hands spreading over his shoulders, anchoring him to the spot when they should both be running: Kostya isn't going to leave. He doesn't understand. They'll both die here: a thought that pushes him into the realm of frantic, his mind a rat trying to escape from the hold of a sinking ship, and the cadence of his ragged, unsteady breathing further picks up to reflect that, shallow and fast and short in a way that doesn't feel like he's taking in oxygen at all, every breath a fight to expand his lungs against the constriction of his chest.

He can't even run. The moment's come, and they're undoubtedly out there, waiting for a family member to answer the door, and he's too paralyzed with his fear of them to even run.

He hears Kostya urge him to look his way but doesn't dare pry his eyes away from the door—he can't will himself to. It's going to open. Any minute. He can't be looking away when that happens. He realizes, dimly, that his eyes are stinging—that they're damp at their corners, welling with traces of unshed tears.

He thinks about the smell of the place, the cold hard cement pressing into his knees, the split-second gunshot that filled the cement-walled chamber before his memory simply stops—and the watering of his eyes spills over, underdramatic, a solitary glistening trail down one cheek without anything to follow it. He wants to answer and finds he just—can't. ]

[ The breathing's too fast, too shallow — Konstantin, with a lifetime of both military and cosmonaut experience, is no stranger to seeing men gasping for breath; it's something their extensive, exhaustive training covers. He knows what it is, what it looks like, but he hasn't dealt much with this himself. All he knows to do is try to give Vasiliy something else to focus on, to ground him — look at him, not the door — but it isn't enough, it isn't enough, and—

—Vasya's eyes are shining with wet, a fact that freshly stuns Konstantin. He blinks widely, horror and hurt both equally tight up under his sternum as he watches that single tear slip down the other man's cheek, something almost surreal to witness. It's strange to see someone that you care so much about in so much pain. To be helpless to do anything to help it. It's one of the worst things in the world; it hits him like a truck. He exhales, softly, and his mind launches into action mode. He needs to stop this. He needs to stop whatever is causing this torment in his friend. (His best, best friend, his person.) ]

Vasya, I'm going to open the door. [ No permission asked; he frames it like a command, a decision that's already made. Firm and assuring and safe. Again, he squeezes those shoulders, eyes desperately searching the mink-brown pair fixed on the door. ]

It's okay. Mukhtar isn't barking anymore; whomever was there is gone now. I'm going to show you that everything's okay. That you can trust me.

[ He pulls back and moves to stand, body language authoritative, assured of itself, shoulders back, chin up — and everything tensed beneath, readying itself. If there is someone out there, someone with ill intention towards his housemate, he'll deal with them swiftly, however needed. His body may be ailing these days, chronically strange and ill, but he's still a tall, athletic man. He can shove someone against a wall, wrap a hand to their throat, keep them still. He can do whatever it takes.

There's no one there, the fact revealing itself as he slowly nudges the door open and then wider, pausing only a brief moment or two before he steps out onto the modest front porch. Peering through the darkness, he can still see the dog, awake and alert but not actively sniffing around, no longer distressed.

Konstantin waits a few moments longer before he steps back inside, keeps one hand on the doorknob as he slowly starts to draw it closed behind him. ]

Someone was here, but they're gone now. No trouble. It was just someone passing by.

[ That's the most logical conclusion, to him; if it were a true emergency, they wouldn't have left so quickly. Maybe someone was checking to see if this cabin was occupied. ]

Edited 2024-05-11 14:31 (UTC)

[ No. No, don't open it— but he finds himself mute, and paralyzed, unable to mobilize his vocal cords and make sound to tell him not to go, unable to do anything but watch with slow horror as Konstantin opens the door and... there's nothing, just the empty dark air.

His breathing doesn't slow, the same ragged shallow breaths in quick succession; the gun continues to shake in his hand. He blinks and fresh tears run down his cheeks, not abundant but there, certainly; he can feel them. The porch is empty—there's nobody there, but there are countless places they could have gone. They're not safe—they're not safe, here or anywhere, and it's a suffocating realization. He swallows thickly, trying to find the capacity for speech. His chest aches. ]

Lock the door. You can't... Kostya, you cannot...

[ He'd thought it might be what finally soothes this unexpected panic in his housemate — whomever he thought might be out there clearly isn't — but Konstantin finds himself freshly stunned to see that there's no shift in the other man's terror; it stays, relenting. Shaking hands and wet cheeks, staring at the door like it's the worst thing he can think of.

And his breathing hasn't slowed, either. That's worrisome; he truly could work himself up into an actual panic attack. Konstantin does turn to lock the door, the deadbolt clipping shut, and then he turns back to Vasiliy. He walks slowly, but steadily, eyes never leaving his. ]

It's locked.

[ His gaze dips to the gun for a moment as he moves carefully around the coffee table to where Vasiliy is. He should probably take the gun, it would be safer to, but he's not about to ask a terrified man to give up his weapon, and he's not sure Vasiliy can hear him anyway. His eyes are— not empty, not that, they're full, but the fullness, the terror, swallows up everything else. He's never seen Vasiliy's eyes look that way.

Maybe it's a stupid thing that he does next. But it's the only thing he can imagine doing. Still slowly, still carefully, he leans in to wrap his arms around the other man's trembling frame, silently. (He remembers, not so long ago, Tatiana grasping him that way and it was the only thing that made him feel safe at all, a solid body, warm breath; he wasn't alone.)

It isn't a timid gesture; it's firm, secure, unconcerned about the gun so close. Konstantin isn't afraid of hm. ]

[ Vasiliy's grasp on the gun between them loosens slightly, hand limp, but there's a frantic feeling to being held: he wants to be held, to be secure, to be told it's alright more than anything—but Kostya doesn't have that power. Nobody has that power. There's no way to run away from them, there's no way to truly outrun them, even here, and he was a fool to live under the delusion that he could. He's trapped. being held prevents him from running away.

His breath still comes out fast and ragged, uneven in its cadence (or lack thereof). His heart races so fast he can feel it against his sternum, sending little twitches of vibration through the collar of his shirt. He's terrified in a way he hasn't been since he was killed, and nothing, nothing, will make it better. He wants to run, run into the forest, run for his life, but his legs won't even raise him off of the couch. All he can do is freeze and remain a passive observer to the situation.

He's trapped and he doesn't want to move and he does want to move. It's overwhelming. More than anything, he wants this moment, this fear, to end. Maybe it would be better if they just kicked down the door and put one through the back of his skull and finally ended it. Then he wouldn't have to marinate in this horrible interim.

Around tears, Vasiliy manages to gasp for enough breath to convey his first coherent thought in several minutes: ]

Bedroom. We need to... We have to get behind another door. Kostya, we have to lock it. P... push a chair against this one.

[ Because he can't. Because he can barely will himself to move as it is, and if he is able to move, it's only going to be in the opposite direction, not toward the danger: he can't will himself through this, like he did in the mine, can't will himself deeper into the source of his terror, closer. He's sure the fear would just overwhelm every synapse in his body and simply kill him. ]

Edited 2024-05-27 14:24 (UTC)

[ Once again, Konstantin thinks that something might fix this, somehow — step by step, piece by piece, but nothing's worked so far, not fully, not enough.

Vasiliy just sits there even as he leans down and tries to hold onto him to ease those tremours, and Konstantin's stricken by a new dose of his own horror, quiet but sinking its teeth into him deeply. Vasiliy is wholly and utterly incapable of doing anything. He's completely helpless in his terror, and it makes Konstantin feel helpless too, in its strange way — afraid that maybe nothing can fix this, whatever this is. Whatever's done this to him (and what could it be? What could make him this fucking terrified? Of someone.... at the door?)

And Vasya's still worried about it, about the door, telling him to push a chair to it, to get to the bedroom, put more barriers between themselves and whatever it is he's so afraid of. Konstantin gives a sharp exhale of breath and nods. All right. All right. ]

You go ahead and head into the bedroom. I'll be right behind you.

[ He stands, and moves to the kitchen, grabbing a chair in one motion, bringing it to shove under the front door handle. Then he grabs another, which he'll carry to the bedroom — fortifying two doors, not just one. Once they're inside and the door's shut, he locks it and shoves the chair up under that handle, then turns back to Vasiliy. ]

Come on— let's get into the bed. There's nothing more we can do to block the door. We might as well get comfortable.

[ 'Go ahead and head into the bedroom,' Konstantin says, and assures him that he'll be behind him—but Vasiliy finds himself rooted to the spot, frozen in place as he watches his companion approach and then barricade the door (for what little good it will do). He can't just—will himself to move away from the only source of security he's found, can't separate himself from the herd so easily. So he just stares and waits, heart still racing, cheeks cold and damp, their tears having cooled with the air around them.

Not that the presence of others had ever stopped the NKVD, of course. Certainly they preferred not to make a commotion—hence why the arrests usually happened at night, that and a desire to disorient the arrestee—but the presence of family members, even those begging them not to take their loved ones, never did anything to stop the officers of any nation's secret police.

Once Konstantin rejoins him, though, he at least manages to stumble numbly toward their shared sleeping quarters, shepherded along like some kind of imbecile.

Konstantin says that there's nothing else they can do to block the door, but that's not true—they can and should move the dresser to block the door, should find a way to obstruct the window in case someone smashes it in. Despite knowing this, and feeling the urge to do so, he just... doesn't. Instead Vasiliy watches from the third person as he sinks deeper below the icy black waters of his own helpessness, the perceived reality of the situation truly beginning to settle upon him: if they're here, and they know that he's here, there's no point in blocking anything. They'll find him and arrest him and kill him, whether they snatch him up in his own home or at the general store or while he's hunting.

So he just sort of sinks into bed, and tries to focus on the presence of the man climbing in beside him, because there's nothing else he can do. He's going to die. ]

[ Vasiliy follows him like a post-op patient, numb and shuffling and lost, and Konstantin can't quite find him when he stares at the other man, like Vasiliy's absent behind his own eyes. Just... gone.

Slowly, he gets into bed, waiting for Vasiliy to slip into his usual spot before he reaches to adjust the blankets, pulling them up, like he's tucking in a child.

Maybe he should leave him be. Let the silence fill in all the spaces, let Vasiliy fall into sleep, and maybe, maybe in the morning, things won't be so horrifying for him.

But how can he just lie there when this man is suffering? Konstantin's turned to face him, eyes soft and concerned, and when he speaks it's barely a whisper. ]

Vasya. [ Gently, he reaches out to place his hand on his arm, palm spreading across it, fingers giving a soft, affectionate squeeze. Still, he tries to find him. He can't, won't give up on that. ]

It's okay. You're safe. I'm going to keep you safe. I won't let anything happen to you.

[ You can't promise that.

He tries to focus on the warm weight of his friend's hand, the comforting pressure of that squeeze. If he could name the source of his fear, Konstantin is the one person in this town who would understand immediately and completely—it's a Soviet fear, one no other population on earth could truly understand. Not to the full extent of the horror behind it.

He lets out another stiff, shuddering breath. How much time has passed? He can't will himself to look up at the clock after he breaks eye contact—can't will himself to look at anything other than the point where Konstantin's throat meets the two protrusions of his collarbones at the center of his chest. If he looks up, they could be there, in his blind spots. He'd rather not see them. He feels like a child, hiding from the sight of imaginary monsters beneath a blanket: 'if I can't see them, they can't see me'—or maybe, more accurately, he knows that he'll be seen, they'll both be seen, but he doesn't want to watch it happen.

He shuts his eyes, tightly. Another tear trickles down one cheek, but he's hardly present enough to feel any of the embarrassment he knows he'll feel later. He's too afraid for that. Debilitated by fear in front of the only person here whose opinion really, truly matters. ]

[ Vasiliy still can't... see him. Can't hear him — not really. Again, the realisation is strange and gutting in ways Konstantin finds himself rattled deeply by. For the first time, Vasiliy Ardankin feels... far away.

(No, not for the first time. Physically, he'd been absent for a week, not so long ago, when he'd journeyed out to Lakeside. And Konstantin had missed him the way he's never missed another living soul before. But this is... different. Not worse, but just as upsetting in a different way. Vasya's right there and he can't reach him.)

Another tear trickles down his friend's cheek, and Konstantin exhales softly, a little shuddering, as though it hurts something in his body. This time when he reaches to hold him, he can't imagine letting go.

His arms open; he's wrapping them around Vasiliy at the same time he's pulling him closer, and his own body nudges closer too — it will bring them flush together, slowly but so warmly, and Konstantin can feel the other man's pulse against him. ]

[ Konstantin holds him—for the first time since before his death, Vasiliy is held. As though by instinct, he presses his forehead to the center of Konstantin's chest, eyes still closed—even held in place, he feels like he's crumbling apart, mind wild and frantic and darting off in a million different directions.

His heart is still beating too hard and too fast, and he feels sick, absolutely nauseous. It's a physically uncomfortable fear, brought on by a body convinced it's time to run while the mind that controls it freezes in place.

It's still unreal—this is coming to an end. He deserves to die; he's been on borrowed time from the start, escaping his own rightful punishment—but no matter how much moral sense it makes, something wild and human within him wants to live. Death isn't an unknown; it's just a nothingness, a ceasing to exist until the lights abruptly come back on, and yet—he's afraid of it. Terrified. And now he's afraid of the separation, too.

He'd never stop missing this man. A permanent death wouldn't be half as bad as waking up far away from Konstantin, living out the rest of his life with the other as nothing more than a gradually eroding memory like his own parents. An eternity of grief and isolation—he fears that, too, more than the actual gunshot.

Not that his body can tell the difference. It's all a life-or-death threat right now. Over and over it releases gross excess of the hormones needed to prepare him for flight that doesn't come, uninterrupted by any kind of chemical intervention as it spirals further, overwhelming conscious thought.

He draws in a sharp, ragged breath, and—cries. A soft, mostly silent, choking sob, more evident from the jerking of his shoulders and erratic breathing than any sound he might make. It's a cascade from there—shaking, inhaling sharp and shallow at random intervals as hot tears bleed throughthe fabric of his friend's shirt. ]

[ He'd hugged him — embraced him, tightly, more than once. But this is... different, very new, and Konstantin knows he's ever held anyone this way. Arms wrapped around a shaking frame, both of them tucked into a warm bed. A teary face tucked in so closely to his chest.

It makes him nervous, in a particular way. Someone so close to his... body, and what's so wrong with it. Some part of him tenses, for a moment, wants to run away.

But he can feel Vasiliy's heart beating. Fast and fluttering, like a small animal. He's so afraid, and Konstantin breathes against him, arms warm and tight. That's when Vasiliy starts crying, like a panicking child — quiet, frame racked with the exertion of it, the demand on his body. (He remembers the little boy in the burning house who had clung to him, and he exhales softly against the top of the younger man's head, breath brushing his hair.) ]

Shh... shh, it's all right. [ He barely utters the words, more breathed than voiced. Instinct has him tightening his hold even more, as though to engulf the other man right in himself. He's aware of how close they are, how dangerously close, but he doesn't let go. His eyes close; he lets his mouth brush against Vasiliy's hair, gently, quietly inhaling the familiar scent of him. He's never wanted to protect anything so much. ]

[ It's nice to be held, and he's dimly, vaguely aware of Konstantin's nose and mouth tucked against his hair, the kind of thing he so desperately would want in his right mind—but he can't enjoy it right now, can barely even register it.

The quiet, choking sobs continue; having finally allowed himself to cry for the first time in... years, about this specifically, about the overwhelming horror of it and the fact that he was killed, that he meant nothing to them, that so many years of his life were for nothing, or worse than nothing, that they worsened the world—it's impossible to stop. He cries because it happened.

It's not alright, it will never be alright, but he doesn't have it in him to try and explain that, or to speak at all, even once the weeping comes to an end, when his body has nothing left to give, no more tears to cry. The raw, acute pain opened up within him like a yawning fault line splitting a road in two remains, a sharp, tremendous gulch torn through his being, but he has no tears left to cry. He simply... stagnates in the anguish, breathless, the skin beneath his eyes wet and tender. The fear gives way to a sense of hollowness, leaving him an exhausted husk.

He coughs, sniffles. Lies there in silence, focusing on the rise and fall of Konstantin's chest against his own, the warmth and solidity of the body holding his. ]

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