𝐕𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐘 𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐊𝐈𝐍. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
m1895) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
singillatim2024-09-07 08:49 pm
m1895) wrote in singillatim2024-09-07 08:49 pm
Entry tags:
oh mama, oh mama, comfort me—
Who: Vasiliy Ardakin (m1895) + others!
What: Assorted non-event happenings.
When: September + a few backdated threads.
Where: Milton.
Content Warnings: Interrogations, flashbacks to torture/mass violence/mass murder. Discussion of the Yezhovshchina.
m1895) + others!What: Assorted non-event happenings.
When: September + a few backdated threads.
Where: Milton.
Content Warnings: Interrogations, flashbacks to torture/mass violence/mass murder. Discussion of the Yezhovshchina.
no subject
His heart should be racing, and yet, he finds that it isn't. Maybe he's just that tired. ]
Konstantin, I'm not... a good person. I have never been a good person. There are things that I should have... told you from the beginning and didn't. First you were sick and then I was just... selfish.
[ He presses his lips together as he looks down at the book held so tightly in his cold grasp. ]
They captured a Forest Talker today, Konstantin. I interrogated him. And it wasn't... [ He draws in a shaky breath against the tightness of his chest, swallows hard, closes his eyes for a moment. Goodbye to all of this. To the one island of human closeness he's felt since dying, or maybe even before that.
More than closeness. Love. He loves him. ]
It wasn't the first time. Or even the second. I was good at it. I was so good at it.
[ He remembers the book. Shakily, he opens it and withdraws the photograph face-down—himself, a lieutenant in the All-Soviet NKVD, seated in full uniform with both parents standing behind him, each with a hand on one of his shoulders—amd holds it out to him between two fingers, trembling slightly with their quivering. ]
Four years, [ he whispers, and when he continues, his voice is thick and strained with unshed tears he has no right to form. ] Until...
[ Until it was his turn. ]
no subject
He falls silent, eyes locked onto the younger man's face, staring as he listens. 'I'm not a good person' he says, and that's familiar, so familiar; how often has Konstantin felt that way about himself? About what kind of danger he continually puts Vasiliy in by virtue of existing under the same roof as him? About the fact he can't, won't give him up, clings onto the security and companionship like a lifeline, one he knows he doesn't deserve?
But this isn't about his guilts and ghosts, it's about Vasiliy's. Whatever's... haunting him.... and then it comes. An interrogation — not the first time, something he was good at; Konstantin's not quite grasping the bigger picture here, brows knit in deep confusion and deeper worry as he stares at the other man.
The book's opening and his eyes drop down to it, still not understanding, still trying desperately to. But then a thing is revealed to him in that picture-form alone, in the photograph that Konstantin gently reaches to take from those quivering fingers, turning around to stare mutely down at the thing.
A handsome young man, and two people that Konstantin would immediately know are Vasya's parents, even if they weren't posed in the obvious way; the man has his nose, the woman his eyes.
A uniform. It comes from an era a generation before his time, a period that ended just around his birth, but he recognises the significance the way anyone from their culture would. A point in history that's fresh enough the horrors are still felt in a particular way.
He doesn't need clarification on most of this; he knows, understands, and that understanding is right there in his eyes as he takes in the photograph, stares at the familiar face of his housemate. Vasiliy was an officer, an interrogator, in the NKVD. He was good at it.
It's the next part that Konstantin has to affirm, even if something in him maybe understands this, too. His voice is soft, quiet, and strangely calm. ]
Until what, Vasya?
no subject
Konstantin hasn't reacted to the revelation. It is, no doubt, the shock. Vasiliy's heart races so fast he feels nauseous; he feels the strength of his quickening pulse in his hands, his breast, his face.
He swallows. The tears spill over, but he doesn't weep. ]
...Until I was shot, [ he whispers, hoarse, eyes welling with a fresh wave of tears. ] I was shot. Executed. Like them. I earned it. They didn't.
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. ]
no subject
Another wave of tears runs down his cheeks. He wants to just... allow himself to break down, to let the straining dam finally break and sob into Konstantin's sturdy shoulder like he needs to, but instead he forces himself to worm out of the comforting grasp, sniffing hard, and looks him in the eye again, his voice hoarse with emotion and barely more than a whisper. ]
No. No. You don't understand. [ He swallows thickly. ] Hundreds of innocent people died because of me. Thousands, probably. I lied to them, Kostya. I did something worse than just beat them, I... I was the one they confessed to. Because they thought I would help them. They signed their own death warrants. Because I lied to them, every day, for four years.
And then when I— After I... died, I... [ There's no way he'll believe this, but he might as well share it all. ] After I died, I didn't stay dead. I came back. Not like Kieren. Like you. Alive. With a heartbeat, and... real blood, and... [ The words collapse like a dilapidated building into a quiet sob. ] It never should have been me. It should have been them, not me.
no subject
But Vasiliy pulls back, looks at him, and he seems so— devastated, and afraid, and it's not the first time that Konstantin's seen him like that, but this is the first time he isn't... frozen, is speaking, words coming out in a flood. How long has he been carrying them inside...?
He listens. He hears what he says. hundreds of innocent people died because of me. thousands, probably. Konstantin knows what kind of atrocity this is, knows how severe, how horrible, but—
—all he can really see is Vasiliy. What does that say about him? His own selfishness? That the bulk of his concern and horror and fear right now is for Vasiliy, not of him? Vasiliy's his, and he wants to protect and keep what's his; he can't possibly think any differently. Maybe he himself truly is a horrible person.
(But he can't think it's horrible, to want to protect and keep this man. Not Vasiliy.)
'After I died, I didn't stay dead. I came back.'
Konstantin stares as he listens to those words, and maybe they truly should be unbelievable but he can't doubt them. Not after everything he's seen and encountered, and— he's always known there's something wrong with Vasya, hasn't he? He's good at compartmentalising what's wrong, at pretending it's not there, but from that very first night when he'd woken up in his bed and realised the horror inside of him came out but didn't touch Vasiliy, that something was wrong with him. The creature knows, it's sensitive, it can tell when something has disease within it, sickness. It can tell when something's wrong.
It's the fissure that splits Vasiliy's words, crumbling inwards to a soft, wounded sob, that has Konstantin reaching for him again — hands lifting to find Vasiliy's wet face. His grasp is hard, firm, fingers slipping into his hair, thumbs pressing against his cheeks. He holds onto him. (What is he? This place can clearly bring people back, but this place is... different, supernatural, strange. Vasiliy came back before here. What is he?) ]
Vasya. It's okay. It's okay. It should have been you. I'm glad it's you. If it wasn't you... I'd be dead now. You saved me here— you saved my life.
[ Yes, it's wholly selfish to think that because Vasiliy came back there, he was then able to save Konstantin's life here. But it isn't just that, it's... ]
I don't care what you've done. I only care about you.
[ It's not that he doesn't care about all of those lives, it's horrifying, haunting, but.... this is blunt honesty, unfiltered, not made pretty, or palatable. His own words are maybe just as horrific, but they're his truth. Konstantin swallows hard, his own eyes wet, holding contact with the soft mink brown pair inches away from his own. ]
There's nothing you could have done that would make me see you differently.
[ He knows that fear. Still feels it sometimes, even though Vasiliy's already accepted every horrible part of him. ]
no subject
He went through it with Stalin, with Yezhov, both of whom, in his own way, he loved.
He read the gorey details of the era he lived in impartial print in a public library, reeling, every sentence worse and more surreal than the last. The horrors he saw from the ground were nothing compared to the horrors he didn’t see, and the lingering question—would he have seen them, if he’d thought to dig, to pull back the veil? Did he just not want to see them?
Vasiliy draws in a shaky breath. ]
You should. You should care. [ Again he searches the face inches away from his own for a modicum of understanding. ] You can’t… Imagine what it’s like down there. Nobody can until they’ve seen it. Every day I just… listened to the screaming, and the beatings, and walked past executions and just… did nothing. I did nothing except feed the machine more bodies. A good person doesn’t do that.
no subject
This is different. It's so different. He's known that there's something.. different about him now, something that has to do with Vasiliy — has everything to do with Vasiliy — even if he hasn't been able to put words or labels to it. He can't pretend, in front of him. He doesn't want to pretend. He wants Vasiliy to know his honesty, and... this is it. This is how he feels. Wrong, horrible, selfish, maybe he's always been that way—
But he falls silent again as he listens, slowly letting his hands drop: aware, suddenly, that he's touching him too much, too sweetly. Vasiliy isn't— his; he shouldn't be touching him like this. (It comes so naturally, it seems like, the desire to touch him, to be soft and gentle with him. He's never been like that to anyone, not authentically.) Konstantin stays close though, face mere inches away from the other man's as he listens.
'just... did nothing'
'a good person doesn't do that'
He's aware, of course, that his situation was different to Vasiliy's in so many ways, and he doesn't want to even begin to try and compare his own to the horrors that his housemate is reliving now. But it does... strike him in such a familiar place. He'd let things happen, too. Let people die; he still often relives their screams, their cries, their pleas. They were hardened criminals, they'd done.... revolting things.
But they were still humans, whose blood filled his body in one way or another, who provided him with sustenance and stability by proxy of the monstrous thing that he's home to now. And he let it happen. A person can't... take part in something like that, and not be... changed by it. He's not 'good' anymore, if he ever was. He's crossed some line. ]
....Maybe there is no such thing as a 'good person', anymore. Not for us.
[ "Us." You, and I. Konstantin lifts his eyes again to look at Vasiliy, soft and sad. ]
It... eats you up, what you were a part of. But you had reasons for being part of it. It wasn't because you're cruel. I know you aren't cruel.
[ Many young men became a part of that system, and were used up by it in turn. It's— not atypical; it's like war. There are horrible things, and at the time you think you're doing what needs to be done. It isn't until after that you realise you'll always regret it. ]
I'm sorry though, Vasya. [ He all but whispers, mouth a deep, aching fronw. ] That you carry this weight. I'm so sorry.
no subject
It unlocks something deep within him, an ache to hear those words that he wasn't aware he was harboring. Maybe he's needed to hear this for years. You aren't cruel. Is that why he became an EMT, a caretaker? To convince himself of that, with minimal success?
You aren't cruel.
The tears spill over again, accompanied by a choked sob, and a cascade of smaller, softer ones that follow, racking his slumped shoulders with shakes as they overtake his whole being. He finds himself clutching fistfuls of the front of Kostya's shirt so tightly his fingers ache, pressing his face into his shoulder and hoping for the bracing solidity of arms around him as it all comes crashing down at last—he has kept himself from hurting for so long, applying layer after layer of shoddy bandaging as the past bled through each one, and he's so tired. He doesn't have it in him any more. Maybe this is the start of a nervous breakdown. All he knows is that a dam has broken, and now the tears are coming, and coming, and coming from deep inside of him. ]
BYEEEEEE
He just holds him. He doesn't stop. It's okay, he'd told him once, when Vasya was so afraid he couldn't move and just sat there like animal, big brown eyes as wide as a deer's in the headlight. But he doesn't tell him it's okay, this time. He doesn't say anything.
He does turn his head to press his mouth against Vasiliy's hair — tight and warm and flush, not quite kissing there but something almost just. It hurts more than he can remember ever hurting for himself, seeing this man in such agony, eaten alive with guilt and self-loathing. He'd take it from him if he could. For every selfish piece of himself that Konstantin's aware of, what he feels for Vasiliy is at once the most selfless he's ever been, either.
He loves him. ]
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. ]
no subject
His heart cracks and splits open wide at the anguish in his housemate, voice so small and breaking in places like a child's as he weeps. Konstantin stays with him, his own body shuddering each time Vasiliy's does, like it reverberates off of each little movement.
He asks so softly that it's like a whisper, gentle and slow and deeply sad. ]
How long has it been? Since you last saw them?
no subject
[ It's the longest set of words he manages to string together before breaking down into another series of quiet sobs, bringing his arms up to wrap around the other's broad back. He grasps so tightly his fingers hurt, short-trimmed nails sinking into the fabric and skin beneath them, as though he expects to be ripped away from Konstantin's hold at any moment—because he does, because this kind of comfort cannot last, not for someone like him. Momentary reprieves and feelings of comfort and security have never lasted for Vasiliy Ardankin or the people like him, not since the day he was born in a nondescript tenement in Petrograd.
He manages to break from the sobbing, maybe just because of bodily fatigue. Vasiliy takes a few wet, gasping breaths, struggling to ground himself before he tries to speak again. His heart still races. ]
I... killed innocent people, Kostya. I have... deserved everything that came to me except... except coming back. That's what I can't understand. There isn't a god because if there was He wouldn't have chosen me to bring back.
no subject
He's also aware, suddenly, of something deeply startling and uncomfortable: the creature moves, restless. Is it— is it reacting to Vasya? Maybe it's his own fluctuations of upset causing the thing's, but he's keeping it together pretty well, able to be that rock for Vasiliy. He's upset by the other's upset, but he isn't breathing too hard and fast; his breathing is even and slow for Vasya, trying to be something safe he can hold onto.
Is it... reacting to Vasiliy directly? Not just through himself, but...?
He takes a moment to try and calm himself further, closing his eyes briefly, jaw working itself out of any lingering tension, at least as much as he's able against the sudden wave of nausea. Maybe it makes sense — after all, it knows Vasiliy. Still, it's unsettling. He tries not to think too much about it, to focus on the other man instead as he's able to form words again, gently brushing his fingers against his back in little circles, some attempt to soothe. He's quiet for a few long moments, processing Vasiliy's self-loathing and guilt, frowning softly before he finally speaks. ]
I don't think there's a god, no. [ He agrees quietly. ] I don't know why... some things happen. Seemingly inexplainable things. But I know what it is to feel like you deserve them.
[ He'll always perceive his own situation as punishment. ]
Maybe there is no reason you came back. But rather... reasons to be made. You're helping people. You take care of them. I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for you.
[ He sighs slowly and carefully through his nostrils, and hugs him again. It seems to ease the creature slightly too, that pressure, that closeness to the other man. What a strange thought. Even the worst parts of himself are soothed by this man's presence. ]
I'm sorry, Vasenka. [ It's the first time he's used the term. ] This is so much pain for you to bear.
no subject
He's never cried like this. It occurs to him for the first time that until now, for the duration of his life, he's never felt safe enough to. Only with Kostya. Only with Kostya, whom he loves more than anyone.
Slowly, Vasiliy pulls away just enough to sit up, wiping at his eyes with shaking hands. His voice is off when he speaks, skewed by congestion and hoarseness, quiet. ]
I shouldn't have lied to you. It's just— [ He searches Konstantin's face. ] It's been so long, Kostya. I've been alone for so long.
no subject
It's all right. I understand why you couldn't reveal everything. It's okay.
[ He shakes his head, not an ounce of him feeling anything remotely similar to upset by that fact. There's no resentment, anger, no distrust. The things Vasiliy has been carrying secretly inside.... it's so much. Impossible truths mixed with horrifically realistic ones. There's a lot about it all to process, but for now Konstantin's just focused on trying to make the other man see that he's not upset with him.
Though the next words make his heart pang with ache, and he can't hide something wounded in his expression. 'I've been alone for so long.'
He slowly rubs his hands up and down the other's arms, brow knit, eyes locked right onto Vasiliy's. Through it all, that weird fear persists, that fear to lose him. What if what happened to Vasya... happens again? What if he's taken away? Dies here, wakes up somewhere else again? What even caused such a thing to happen? Was it supernatural in origin? He feels like he can't hold onto him tightly enough. ]
You aren't any more. I'm with you now. And I'm not going anywhere.
[ There's never been anything in his life that Konstantin wasn't willing to abandon, if he had to. Not until now. ]