It's not the one with your name on it

Aryol woke up happy.

He felt a lingering contentment, a sensation of safety and warmth, a knowledge that the major lay close to him. They slept in a tangle of supple limbs, twined together in the rumpled bed.

Liadov was stirring as well. Drowsily, Kirill realized something had woken them.

A sharp noise, a knock at the door.

It reminded him of that late night when Viktor had interrupted their post-coital lounging with a rap at Liadov's door, followed up by a punch to his face. The knock sounded so much the same, forceful and authoritative, that Kirill almost wondered if he were dreaming of that moment again.

It had been a little traumatic, at the time. A little less so now, to remember it.

The knock sounded again, louder. More insistent.

Against him, the major sighed, quiet and long-suffering. He shifted, moving as if to get up, but Kirill reached out and laid a staying hand on his chest.

"I think I should get it. You never know, maybe it's Viktor again."

Grinning, he left the major with a kiss and gently pulled away.

He glanced back at Liadov, who had settled back in bed, looking wryly amused.

"...or maybe it's your captain friend," Kirill added.

Aryol did not bother with clothing. He figured that anyone knocking on the major's door in the middle of the night should already know what he might be in for.

He opened the door, and there was Viktor.

Kirill stared for a moment, struck by the unreality of the moment.

Viktor, as if he'd stepped from a dream, though this was Viktor without his rifle, Viktor wearing a tank and workout pants, Viktor somehow looking strangely out of place.

They stared at each other. After a few seconds, Viktor glanced down.

"Christ, is that how you answer the door?"

Aryol stared at him pointedly.

"I'm not going to let you hit him again. You can try to hit me if you want."

Viktor scowled, but then exhaled sharply, shaking his head.

"No. No. It's not that. It's actually important. Urgent. I need to see Liadov. And...sorry for waking you," Viktor said. The last was more of a mumble.

"Who said we were sleeping?"

Viktor looked at him, his eyes deep and unfathomable cerulean. "Please."

Kirill frowned.

"What is it, another body?" he asked, more softly now.

Viktor grimaced.

"Not...quite."

It was enough for Aryol. He recognized the seriousness of Viktor's tone. He nodded and turned back toward the bed, where the major waited, head tilted and eyes narrowed with interest.

Kirill flashed him a small smile, curved slightly with irony.

"It's for you," he said.

Aryol laid his gloved hand on the doorknob, testing it silently.

The door was locked, but that was typical. The major took sensible precautions, considering there was a killer loose on base. Not that it could stop someone in Black Ops.

He shifted the lay of his rifle on his back and took out his lockpicks. He wore them on his gear belt in a soft leather case, carried them with him everywhere. That was standard procedure. A sniper never knew when he might have to break into a building in order to find a good nest to shoot from.

Or break into his lover's office in order to drag him to bed.

The lock was easy, and Aryol was good. It gave after a few seconds of work, and he put his lockpicks away and opened the door.

There was someone standing in front of him. Not the major.

A man, broad shouldered and broad chested. A broad brow, too, with short dark hair and a thick jaw. He looked somehow familiar, though Aryol couldn't place him immediately.

The man stared at Aryol, wide-eyed. Aryol wondered if he'd caught someone breaking into the major's office when he saw that Liadov was here too, standing to the side, leaning against the wall. Looking even more languid than usual.

Aryol smiled, slowly.

"Working late?"

I'm kind of starting to like it here.

I think it's like being normal.

When I go to mess, I sit in the same place and talk to the same people, but I eat something different every day. I sleep in a real bed, in a real room, with privacy and everything.

And don't get me started on the showers.

There are a lot of people to talk to here, people I'm getting to know. I'm pretty sure they're becoming friends.

...and then there's the Major.

And my father.

I think I like it here more than anywhere else I've ever been, and that's kind of saying a lot, because I've been a lot of places.

I could get used to living here, but...

It's not going to last.

We're here on assignment, and when the assignment's done, we'll leave again. Just like always.

I know nothing lasts forever.

But I want to keep this just a little bit longer, if I can.

We came in from the cold, pretending to be a countersniper unit so we could get closer to the target. It's a really great cover, actually, and should make our job easier.

Unless we don't take out the target.

Like say, if Leshovik misses his shot next time we get the target in our sights.

Then we would have to back off for a while and pretend to look for the 'enemy snipers' who took the shot. That could, you know, take weeks.

I mean, every time he misses, he blames me anyway.

I guess that would just make it my fault again.

Aryol had heard the story of Leshovik’s first kill more than once.

It was a pretty fucked up story, as stories went, but Aryol decided he wasn’t really in the position to judge anyone when it came to moral turpitude.

Leshovik told the story like the way he smoked a cigarette, head tilted back, eyes closed, lips parted as if to savor every word. The hard set of mouth and jaw eased, features cut like Hellenistic bronze recast to soft marble. It was obvious from the way Leshovik told it that the memory was vivid and real for him, that he was feeling it, reliving it.

So much so that Aryol usually could see Leshovik’s erection swelling under his fatigues.

Leshovik’s first kill had been in the rain.

Traditionally, snipers hated rain. Damp cartridges misfired, wood stocks warped, metal parts rusted. Scopes blurred and hands cramped from the cold.

But Leshovik had scored his first kill in the rain, earned the first notch on the stock of his rifle. And it hadn’t been any ordinary kill, either.

Leshovik’s first kill had been a sniper kill.

He’d hunted an enemy sniper while the sniper hunted him, and had won the battle with good eyes and good reflexes and good aim, as well as maybe a little bit of luck, though not to hear Leshovik tell it.

It was an auspicious start to any sniper’s career. Maybe too auspicious. First shot, first kill, first sniper kill. Enough to go to anyone’s head.

Still, Aryol liked the story the way Leshovik told it, his voice low and sonorous with the cadence of truth and the reverence of legend. Leshovik never left out the part about how he’d been aroused the entire time, and had a spontaneous orgasm when he’d pulled the trigger.

That was the part that was kind of fucked up, when he really thought about it, but Aryol supposed if you were going to be a pervert, you might as well wear it on your sleeve.

That morning, Aryol had woken up to the sound of rain tapping chill fingers on the window.

He’d rolled a condom over the barrel of his rifle and pulled on his parka, flipping the hood down. It had settled low on his forehead, shuttering the edges of his vision.

By the time he left the major’s room, the rain was coming down thick and sloppy, splattering sideways, soaking through his fatigues, numbing his skin. It was near-slush, denied the crispness of snow by a matter of degrees.

He double-timed the route between the main wing and artillery range, trotting through puddles and skirting the leeward sides of buildings, stealing under shelter wherever he could find it. The range itself was covered, the head of each lane shielded by its own covered cage, but even so, it was near-deserted, save for a lone shooter silhouetted in the next-to-last lane.

Aryol smiled, to himself.

He recognized the shooter even before he recognized the rifle, the particular intent set of the man’s shoulders and the cant of his neck as distinctive as the profile of a Dragunov. Leshovik’s stance always seemed a little too tense to Aryol, but then again, Leshovik also stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth when he was lining up a shot, and that didn’t seem to hamper him, either.

Aryol sidled into the lane next to Leshovik’s.

“Nice day for shooting, isn’t it, comrade.”

He flipped back his hood with a fine spray of water.

Leshovik held his pose a beat longer, then turned his head.

“It is,” he said, slowly, “comrade.”

Leshovik looked at him a moment.

“You’re up early.”

The words felt weighted somehow, like an accusation.

Aryol looked down, pulling a fresh magazine from his ammo pouch.

“Yeah, well. The rain. You know.”

He could feel the pressure of Leshovik’s gaze remain on him.

“Right. Hey, have you talked to that MVD major lately?”

Aryol paused.

“Which one?”

Not that there was more than one.

Aryol slapped the clip in place and glanced at Leshovik. “The one we ate with the other day, you mean? Yeah, he was at mess last night.”

He kept his expression fairly neutral, mildly interested.

“Why?”

Leshovik pressed his lips together.

“I heard something at mess this morning, about Niotkuda.”

That stirred the embers of memory, and Aryol recalled what the major and his partner had been talking about at mess the previous night, before the supply captain had arrived and unceremoniously invited himself to what had become the joint MVD and Black Ops table. Aryol had nearly forgotten.

He nodded.

“Oh. I heard that too. They were talking about it last night. They said there was an inquest. That someone was killed, it sounded like they thought Niotkuda did it.”

Leshovik was frowning.

“When did that happen?”

“The killing? Not yesterday…the day before, it sounded like.”

Aryol shrugged.

“He didn’t do it,” Leshovik said, his voice edged with a low vehemence.

Aryol looked at Leshovik, who glanced away, turning back toward the target.

“Well…that’s good,” Aryol said, slowly. “It didn’t sound like they really thought he did. The pathologist had to analyze more evidence, though. He said they might find something else.”

“I see.”

Aryol watched Leshovik raise his rifle and start to adjust the scope. It always took Leshovik forever to commit to the shot, fine tuning minutely until the margin for error narrowed to the statistically insignificant.

He looked down the lane at the target that huddled in the distance. Nine hundred meters. Well within the Dragunov’s range, but wind and rain were the unpredictable factors. No amount of adjusting could truly make a shot a sure thing.

“That’s a long shot, for this kind of weather.”

“Shooting in weather is my specialty.”

“I know.”

“One of my specialties.”

Aryol rolled his eyes.

“I know.”

Leshovik continued to tune the rifle, each motion of his hand precise, and steady. The tip of his tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth. Aryol looked at that for a while.

“I met someone,” he said, finally.

Leshovik’s hand stilled on the scope, but he didn’t raise his head.

“What do you mean, you met someone?”

“A man.”

Leshovik was quiet for a few seconds.

“Who?”

“Someone,” Aryol repeated, pointedly.

“When?”

“The other day.”

“So? What are you trying to tell me? Are you fucking him?”

“Yeah. I’m fucking him.”

The muscles in Leshovik’s jaw tightened, re-edged the smooth sculpt of his profile to the hardness of metal.

“I don’t care,” he said.

Leshovik pulled the trigger.

The report of the Dragunov cracked loud, but the rumble of afterechoes were swallowed by the rain.

“You missed.”

“Fuck you.”

Leshovik took four more shots in rapid succession, empty cartridges ejecting violently, bouncing off concrete with the clear ring of brass.

“You hit three times, missed twice.”

Leshovik scowled, raising his head to squint down the lane.

“Even you can’t see that.”

Aryol shrugged.

“Send it up, and we’ll see.”

Leshovik began to reload, instead.

“I’m not using steel-jacketed ammo.”

Aryol raised his rifle. The target in his lane wasn’t set for sniper practice, but instead stood only a third of the distance as Leshovik’s, maybe three hundred meters, maximum effective range for the Kalashnikovs most soldiers used. He eyeballed the distance and guessed at the wind, careless.

“Neither am I.”

The steel-jacketed ammo was too precious to use for target practice, too hard to come by out here, newly-minted ammunition for a brand-new firearm. Aryol had gone back to using the standard 7.62 rounds, even though they meant decreased accuracy and range.

He took five shots, emptying the magazine.

A curl of smoke issued from the tip of Aryol’s rifle as he lowered it. He glanced across the partition at Leshovik.

Leshovik was looking at him, lip curled, faintly.

“Anyone could make those shots, from that distance.”

He tipped his chin in the direction of the target.

“I could do it with my eyes closed.”

“I’m just getting warmed up,” Aryol said.

Leshovik’s eyes were steely, the color of gunmetal.

“Yeah,” he said, quietly. “I guess you are.”

Aryol’s chest tightened into a cramp.

“Have I hurt you?” he asked, impulsively, the words stinging his tongue like liquor.

“What?”

Leshovik tensed suddenly, the muscles in his neck turning corded and hard.

“Don’t be fucking ridiculous,” he said.

“I mean it.”

“Why the hell would you ask me something like that?”

“I just…I want to know.”

Leshovik was silent, staring.

Aryol’s gaze went to the concrete.

“I’ve been…thinking, lately, about me. About the things I do. Wondering if there’s something wrong with me. If there are things I never learned, or if I just can’t understand. I mean…”

He trailed off, and looked up.

“You and I haven’t…talked much, lately. I don’t see you around. I’m not sure if you’re busy with other things, or if you’re…”

Aryol’s brow furrowed.

“…or if I did something, if I hurt you in some way.”

Leshovik was staring at him, jaw working, gaze flashing, eyes flicking back and forth, watching Aryol with an intensity he’d rarely seen. The struggle was raw and plain to Aryol’s eyes, and it made his gut clench.

“If I did something wrong,” Aryol added.

Something shifted in Leshovik’s eyes then, turned thin and keen, and his gaze whetted to a vicious edge.

“You wouldn’t know the difference between right and wrong if it bit you in the ass.”

Breath left Aryol forcefully, and he exhaled with a gasp.

You don't know that you're wrong. You don't think you're wrong. You don't know right from wrong.

“All right,” he heard himself whisper.

The words were an echo of the major’s, the same sentiment but filtered through a narrow rifled barrel, propelled by combustion far more incendiary than the observations that flowed like liquor off a MENT’s cool tongue.

It was not so much the medium as the message, Aryol thought, faintly, and the message was the same.

The back of his throat felt dry.

“I’m sorry,” Aryol said. “I didn’t – ”

“Don’t bother,” Leshovik snapped.

Aryol flinched, drawing in an unsteady breath, shivering under his parka, his throat and chest constricted. He felt vaguely sick, queasy.

Leshovik held his gaze for a few seconds longer, finally shaking his head. He slung his rifle over his shoulder.

“You can have my lane if you want. I’m done here.”

After a moment, Aryol nodded.

“Yeah,” he said, quietly, “I can tell.”

Leshovik walked straight down the row of cages, then stopped at the end.

Moments passed.

Leshovik could have stepped out into the deluge, but he didn’t, hesitating instead, lingering as if he were hoping something would happen first, that the rain would stop or the sky would clear, or Aryol would call out and beg for Leshovik’s forgiveness.

After a few moments, Leshovik glanced over his shoulder.

“Hey, Aryol,” he called, and Aryol could hear the hesitation in his tone, the words softened by the lilt of uncertainty.

Aryol looked up, jaw tightening.

“Don’t bother,” he called back.

Leshovik stiffened, then.

“I won’t.”

Aryol watched silently as Leshovik turned away.

Overhead, the sky was dark and veiled by clouds, and it continued to rain.

I had something to tell him. Something to confess.

It would have been easier if I hadn't. Probably. At least until it came out. And it probably would have, one way or the other. That would have been worse.

Still, this wasn't easy.

There are things I shouldn't have done in the first place, but...

Hindsight, like they say.

Maybe foresight would serve me better.

( 'We've passed the point where we can pretend to be strangers, then.' )

We're getting to know each other better.

It's interesting. He comes from an entirely different world than I do. I guess most everyone does, in a way, but I like hearing about his life, his job. His old friends.

I guess he'll be heading back to them, one day.

Carpe Diem, someone told me once. Seize the day. Live for the moment.

Guess I will.

I always do.

( '...I won't forget you.' )

I left the major and his partner at mess to deal with the supply captain. It was interesting, to see how cool and controlled the major was, how handily he dealt with Captain Utrov. For all his indulgence and passion, the major's got a kind of ruthless streak too.

I like that.

I wanted to stick around to see what happened, but I had to...make arrangements for the evening. I didn't figure I'd miss much, and what I had in store was a lot better...

( 'There's no art in hypocrisy if you flaunt it' )

My dreams scatter upon waking like a flock of startled doves, gone in the space between eyeblinks.

It’s just as well. I would rather not remember. My dreams tend to be as thick and heavy with symbolism as a Dostoevsky novel, and I usually understand them about as much. People I know, places I don’t, situations that make no sense yet always feel weighted with a significance I can’t quite grasp.

The turbulence lingers, and for a few moments, I don’t know where I am, or who I’m with, just that I’m in bed and lying against someone hard and warm.

My chest pangs suddenly, aching in a distant way, and I don’t know why.

The major, I remember, then. The MVD major who beckoned me into the darkness with sleepy come-hither eyes and a dark smile. The man who cuffed my hands and fucked me against a wall, but then invited me to his room and later, into his body.

My new friend.

How many days has it been? I feel almost disinclined to count, but it’s been long enough to that my subconscious mind no longer assumes upon waking that the man next to me is Leshovik.

Sometimes I wonder if relationships are supposed to be as fleeting as dreams, or if it’s just something about being young. Or if it’s something about me.

Ever since I was a kid, things have changed quickly, and people have passed in and out of my life. Affairs lasted days or weeks, or sometimes even months. I can’t remember the names of everyone I’ve ever been with, all those men. If I were to count them, I think I would even forget some. That’s all right, though. There are some I want to forget.

In comparison, I’ve been with Leshovik a long time. Three years. I actually started to think that Leshovik might be a constant, someone who would be there for me in a way no one ever has, but now I wonder if he’s going to slip away, too. Will I forget his name one day as well, and he’ll just be that guy, that sniper, I used to be with?

That’s not what I want.

It makes me think about Lynx. It was so intense, but it barely lasted a day. Now, I’ve hardly seen him since we got here. Does that mean it’s over?

And now there’s the major.

I know him, yet I don’t.

Green-eyed and ginger-haired, mild and easygoing, my new friend is fun and adventurous, though there’s a fierce undercurrent lurking right below the surface. Crossing him in the wrong way, at the wrong moment, would be deadly, I think. He’s fearless, and shameless, like me, and he’s the nosiest lover I’ve ever been with, which startled me at first, but is actually kind of hot. Leshovik orgasms silently, the way we do in the field, but the major lets his appreciation be heard.

By everyone in the building.

But still. Hot.

I don’t know what this is between us – it started as a mutual enjoyment of each other’s bodies, but now there’s tenderness, a sharing and comradeship that is unlike what I have with Leshovik or have had with anyone else, for that matter. He’s older than me, but it doesn’t seem like it. I kind of like that.

He said he was alone before he met me. That seems sad, and a little surprising, for someone like him. Though I guess sometimes it just shakes out that way.

It makes me want to make sure he won’t be alone anymore.

I watch him sleep for a while. It’s strange being the one who wakes up first. I almost never get to see Leshovik when he’s sleeping.

The major looks younger when he’s asleep, brow smooth and downturned mouth full and generous, relaxed into an almost-smile. Thirty-five years old, he said, and I can see it in his manner and the quiet knowledge in his eyes, but now he seems somehow vulnerable.

I brush his hair off his forehead, but he doesn’t stir.

When I get up to use the lavatory, he’s still asleep when I get back. He won’t be waking up anytime soon.

I decide to let him sleep. I get dressed in the semidark and leave the way I came in, through the window, climbing up the side to the building to the roof. I have to do it quickly, since it’s daylight now, and I don’t have darkness to shroud me, but even still, I make it back unseen.

Thirty minutes later, I’m showered and changed, and I break into his room again, this time to leave him something to eat.

Blini would probably get soggy, so I leave him an apple and a little tvorog along with some chai, carefully wrapped. Hopefully it’ll stay warm long enough for him to enjoy it.

I leave him a note.

Preyatnova Opetita, I write, but I don’t address it, or leave a signature.

He’ll know who it’s from.

I wake up to the smell of sex, and that always makes for a good morning.

I'm naked, sore, and sticky, pressed warm and drowsy against my lover, in no particular hurry to get out of bed. He's still asleep.

Last night was...wow. Pretty depraved. Not that I'm complaining. I mean it in the very best way possible.

My lover, this MVD man...he's a lot of fun. It's really nice to be with someone who is as kinky as I am without being too kinky, if you know what I mean. I've been with men who were a little extreme, even for me.

I'm not proud of some of those things I did, but that's behind me now.

Leshovik is...well, more traditional, I guess. He likes the same three things, and that's pretty much all we do. Not that I've seen much of him lately. At first I thought he was busy, but now...I think he's avoiding me.

I guess I'm not all that important now that he's getting regular sex from someone else.

...

Well, I have someone else now too.

It's becoming a regular thing, me and the MVD major. I like that. I could get used to it. It's fun, getting to know each other better at the same time there are things we don't know at all.

I feel like we're becoming like brothers - kind of the way Lynx and Leshovik are like brothers. That's kind of nice.

We had an interesting detour last night.

When I got to his room, my MVD friend already had company and I, well, crashed the party. Turns out I already knew his company.

In fact, I'm kind of related to him.

That's why what happened next was so depraved.

Maybe next time...well, I don't know if there'll be a next time.

Hey, but you never know, right?

( It was all right, to do that with your father, wasn't it? Not like the babies could be born wrong. )

He's a nice guy.

I've known some nice guys, and some not-so-nice guys in my time. The not-so-nice ones were bad enough to make Leshovik look good, which I guess is saying something.

Not that Leshovik's a bad guy, it's just...

I don't know.

It's hard, sometimes. And now he's with Lynx.

I thought it was going to be different. I thought the three of us were going to all be together, like back at the cave. But I guess everything's different now. I haven't really seen Lynx around. Leshovik's avoiding me.

And I don't like being alone.

It wasn't like I was looking for someone, but I found him anyway.

And...it's different with him. I know he's older than me, but somehow, it doesn't feel like it. He's just fun to be with.

I don't know if this is the start of something...

...but I like it.

( Perhaps it was entirely too possible to know enough to make love despite not having a word for the man you embraced. )