[ Vasiliy wakes up in the same way he always does: on his right side, legs curled toward his chest, facing the window that illuminates the rest of the room with morning light. After a moment he sits up and swings his legs over the edge of the bed, bare feet effortlessly finding the house slippers he lined up at the edge of the bedframe the previous night; he stretches his upper body and grabs the revolver on the bedside table as his arm falls.
It's routine by now, or as much of a routine as he's been able to carve out in a place like this with hours like his. This place will never be a home, or even a tenable situation, but there is comfort in familiar motions. He puts on the bathrobe hanging from the bedpost and drops the gun into the right-side pocketβthen freezes when a difference in his environment hits him like a fault line that's appeared overnight.
The stripped twin bed that's gone empty for the past few months is still pushed against the far wall, but it's unoccupied no longer. A woman he's never seen his life sleeps there, motionless, seemingly oblivious. For the time being.
A flash of dread tenses every muscle in his body, a preparation on the molecular level to match the abrupt rise in his pulse and the dryness in his mouth. Sure, she's probably not in the house on her own volition any more than he was, but for all he knows she lived through it, or she's a criminal investigator. Or one of Beria's people.
Vasiliy slowly removes the gun from his pocket and broadens his stance, mink brown eyes flicking from object to object as though cataloguing the room for the first time: it's sparse, thank god, and there's barely anything she could throw at him or try to stab him with. Pretty much every materialist knick-knack and pointless bauble that had undoubtedly charmed the home's previous inhabitants is in a box somewhere now, where it's less of an ostentatious eyesore, and he's the one with the loaded weapon.
She could have one on her far side, something in the back of his mind needles. Careless. Careless.
Vasiliy tenses his jaw until he can feel the presence of every alloy filling and crown his molars have among them, takes a slow breath, points the gun. He keeps his voice level, reasonable, but certainly not friendly. ]
Get up. Don't scream. Tell me your name and why you are here.
d. sinteticheskaya lyubov / amour plastique | cw for guns
It's routine by now, or as much of a routine as he's been able to carve out in a place like this with hours like his. This place will never be a home, or even a tenable situation, but there is comfort in familiar motions. He puts on the bathrobe hanging from the bedpost and drops the gun into the right-side pocketβthen freezes when a difference in his environment hits him like a fault line that's appeared overnight.
The stripped twin bed that's gone empty for the past few months is still pushed against the far wall, but it's unoccupied no longer. A woman he's never seen his life sleeps there, motionless, seemingly oblivious. For the time being.
A flash of dread tenses every muscle in his body, a preparation on the molecular level to match the abrupt rise in his pulse and the dryness in his mouth. Sure, she's probably not in the house on her own volition any more than he was, but for all he knows she lived through it, or she's a criminal investigator. Or one of Beria's people.
Vasiliy slowly removes the gun from his pocket and broadens his stance, mink brown eyes flicking from object to object as though cataloguing the room for the first time: it's sparse, thank god, and there's barely anything she could throw at him or try to stab him with. Pretty much every materialist knick-knack and pointless bauble that had undoubtedly charmed the home's previous inhabitants is in a box somewhere now, where it's less of an ostentatious eyesore, and he's the one with the loaded weapon.
She could have one on her far side, something in the back of his mind needles. Careless. Careless.
Vasiliy tenses his jaw until he can feel the presence of every alloy filling and crown his molars have among them, takes a slow breath, points the gun. He keeps his voice level, reasonable, but certainly not friendly. ]
Get up. Don't scream. Tell me your name and why you are here.