[ Without being told, almost as though by telepathy, Konstantin knows to hold him, his larger body engulfing Vasiliy’s small, wiry form as it shakes with sobs and nervous tremors. It’s not the first time he’s cried about this at all—but it’s the first time he’s ever done so while feeling entirely secure, able to grieve the full magnitude and allow himself to shatter to pieces in the middle of the day as the situation truly deserves.
He thinks about the faces of all of the people who trusted him. He thinks about his parents finding out he’s dead by getting arrested and shot themselves, and how, in effect, he killed the people who raised him. He thinks about the massive void that surrounds him where a familiar environment and webs of connections and friends used to be, now only full of silence and one man and a couple of acquaintances. They’re all gone. All of them. And for all he knows, it will happen again—he’ll come back and Kostya won’t and he’ll be alone again.
He wonders when he became a bad person, at what point the shock wore off, when the pivotal moment was when he truly chose to stay. He thinks about how, in the beginning, he enjoyed being seen in uniform, and how he’d taken that photograph with his parents, and how before the magical boar had coughed up the photograph— ]
I forgot their faces, [ he whines between sobs. ] I forgot my own parents’ faces. I killed them and I didn’t even remember their faces.
[ And he misses them. He shouldn’t have been parentless at 30. He shouldn’t have moved so far away from them so young. He wasted his time with them, and that realization, and the remorse, hurts almost as much as the loss. ]
tw parent loss
He thinks about the faces of all of the people who trusted him. He thinks about his parents finding out he’s dead by getting arrested and shot themselves, and how, in effect, he killed the people who raised him. He thinks about the massive void that surrounds him where a familiar environment and webs of connections and friends used to be, now only full of silence and one man and a couple of acquaintances. They’re all gone. All of them. And for all he knows, it will happen again—he’ll come back and Kostya won’t and he’ll be alone again.
He wonders when he became a bad person, at what point the shock wore off, when the pivotal moment was when he truly chose to stay. He thinks about how, in the beginning, he enjoyed being seen in uniform, and how he’d taken that photograph with his parents, and how before the magical boar had coughed up the photograph— ]
I forgot their faces, [ he whines between sobs. ] I forgot my own parents’ faces. I killed them and I didn’t even remember their faces.
[ And he misses them. He shouldn’t have been parentless at 30. He shouldn’t have moved so far away from them so young. He wasted his time with them, and that realization, and the remorse, hurts almost as much as the loss. ]