[ It won't have ended well for Vasiliy. This is a fact that Konstantin knows, though his mind is having a hard time truly allowing the final pieces to come together, padded in some numb disbelief that counters the knowledge he's sure of. The rift between what's true and what's possible — and then it comes. It comes with tears slipping down the cheeks of the other man, this impossible confession (but is it really so impossible? Konstantin himself is dead back home, he made fucking sure of it, yet somehow this place has kept him living.)
It's entirely possibly that Vasiliy can be alive here too, but maybe that's not the most important thing right now. It's not the thing that has his own chest feeling so tight he can hardly breathe, in any case — like the air's been sucked right out of his lungs. The thing that does that is the realisation that he was killed. The word Vasya uses is— somehow worse than that, something with a particular weight. A particular finality.
Executed.
(And maybe that makes other parts of this make sense, why Vasiliy fell into panic when the pounding at the door came to their cabin one night, why he couldn't sleep until he was held like a child, why he trembled like something being eaten up from the inside out. It's known in their history, how the secret police came in the night to those doors, and then how many of them fell to the same fates.)
There's so much to think about, to reason, to analyse, but in the moment it's emotion that demands hold of the cosmonaut.
He stares at him, this man he would do anything for, the trembling breaths, the fluttering wet lashes. There's only a second, maybe less, and Konstantin's turning to where Vasiliy sits beside him, arms going around the other, holding on so tight that it's almost too tight, the gesture more desperate than comforting to begin with; when he breathes, it pulls Vasiliy in with it, forces him even closer before a shaky exhale lets him ease back, but only just. He holds onto him like he's afraid to lose him — he is.]
cw: mention of execution, mention of suicide
It's entirely possibly that Vasiliy can be alive here too, but maybe that's not the most important thing right now. It's not the thing that has his own chest feeling so tight he can hardly breathe, in any case — like the air's been sucked right out of his lungs. The thing that does that is the realisation that he was killed. The word Vasya uses is— somehow worse than that, something with a particular weight. A particular finality.
Executed.
(And maybe that makes other parts of this make sense, why Vasiliy fell into panic when the pounding at the door came to their cabin one night, why he couldn't sleep until he was held like a child, why he trembled like something being eaten up from the inside out. It's known in their history, how the secret police came in the night to those doors, and then how many of them fell to the same fates.)
There's so much to think about, to reason, to analyse, but in the moment it's emotion that demands hold of the cosmonaut.
He stares at him, this man he would do anything for, the trembling breaths, the fluttering wet lashes. There's only a second, maybe less, and Konstantin's turning to where Vasiliy sits beside him, arms going around the other, holding on so tight that it's almost too tight, the gesture more desperate than comforting to begin with; when he breathes, it pulls Vasiliy in with it, forces him even closer before a shaky exhale lets him ease back, but only just. He holds onto him like he's afraid to lose him — he is. ]