𝔟𝔦𝔯𝔡𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝖕𝖗𝖊𝖞

@bratvaborn​ the garnizon

dainty forearms balanced a saucer and cup, as elena wove through the late morning crowd, fair-skinned hands grasping a warm plate of pastries. he’d only just walked in, but the tea was a regular affair, and the blinis were courtesy of the small blonde. maksim sokolov’s door hadn’t latched until the midnight hours, after lena’s nightmares had already woken her from fitful sleep, and those hours weren’t meant to be witnessed by the living.

she set the plates down; first the blinis, and then the tea, offering him a small smile. “it’s extra strong,” she offers, nodding at the tea. “someone had a late night. it was either you or the old lady across the hall, and madame belova fell asleep with her door open at seven.” 

if the pakhan is the king of the volki’s deck, maksim is the jack. the second in command operates their territory with a gloved fist that does not have any weaknesses. he works late into the night and early every morning to keep things running smoothly - he balances books, recruits foot-soldiers, orchestrates shows of volki strength, and these things take time. all of his time, in fact. and that is the way he likes it. 

“spying is an unseemly habit, miss zorkin.” maksim replies, barely looking up from his ledger until the sight of the blinis in his vision makes him look up and smile ever so slightly. “but there is work to be done. the racetrack opens again on sunday, there is much to prepare.” everyone else in the respectable building of apartments that maksim lived assumed he was an accountant, because that was what he told them, and the books under his arm seemed to be proof enough. elena zorkin, he knew, was not under the same impression, but he was not so crass as to discuss illegal business with a young woman of her temperament. weak temperament. “thank you.” the tip he slides across the table is large, but he can afford such things for kindness and to sate curiosity. “the question begs... what were you doing awake at that hour?”

‘   teddy ,   ’   he  offers  to  the  other ,  understanding  but  not  needing  the  honorific ,  nor  to  be  addressed  as   mr .  rakovsky .  despite  the  years  he  had  been  gone ,  teddy  still  pictures  his  father  more  than  himself  when  he  hears  the  name .  he  extends  a  hand  to  the  other ,  intent  to  shake  in  greeting .   ‘   no  need ,  this  place  is  open  to  whoever  wishes  to  come  in .   ’   so  long  as  they  were  not  there  to  cause  unneeded  trouble ,  which  ,  given  the  efforts  of  politeness  the  other  was  displaying ,  fyodor  hardly  suspected  from  him .

he  tilts  his  head  slightly ,  wondering  how  this  occurred ,  but  not  questioning  it ,  then  nods .   ‘   내 것이 녹슬었을 가능성이있다,   ’   he  answers ,  which  was  the  truth  in  part .  he  spoke  it  with  his  mother  frequently ,  but  besides  that  he  had  little  opportunities  to  practice .  and  even  as  much  as  his  mother  tried ,  there  was  still  a  slight  russian  lean  to  the  words ,  though  that  was  probably  only  noticeable  to  native  speakers .  still ,  it  makes  him  smile  to  have  someone  else  to  speak  with .   ‘   최근에 모스크바에 도착 했습니까  ?   ’

jae nods and cannot hide his smile. “teddy it is.” familiarity is a hard thing to come by in russia, he has found. “지금 쯤이면 저도 마찬가지입니다.” he misses home, not that he would admit that to himself lightly. the tea pastures and the pagolas and the men in their top knots and the women about the markets in seoul in their hanbok. he misses the grey ocean at busan and his mothers lisp that he can’t read in her handwriting. speaking his mother tongue, his mother’s tongue, makes him realise how much that is true. “아니, 어릴 때 왔어요. 우리가 합병되기 전에.”

he notices the other man’s smile and some of his reservation at showing up unannounced subsides. “당신... a boxer?” he asks, switching mid-sentence to russian when he realises he doesn’t know the word for boxer. “your accent suggests you might have been here even longer than me.” 

“Neither can a corpse. Guess who I’d prefer to be around at the moment?” Even though he spent his days attempting to save those doomed and disorderly from succumbing to their many ailments, Kon did have an appreciation for the silence that death brought. Despite Jae’s insistence, he made no attempts at adjusting his position besides nestling his neck against the crook of the couch cushion to get a better view of the man struggling with his boots.  “People die from a little rain,” Konstantin murmured, “Accidents, fall, a bit of a cold that turns into something more. Infection.” His eyes pointedly fell on Jae’s legs as he spoke. “Sepsis. Amputation. No more dancing. Sadness. Depression. All from a little rain.”

“by all means. the cemetery is a mere 15 minute walk from here. you will not be missed.” jae snapped as he rose, going and rifling through the pantry looking for something to fuel himself with after a long day of pushing himself to the very limits of his abilities. but, as usual, he was seeing nothing that did not make his stomach turn in anguish. 

“i would ask if you are always so insufferably dramatic, but i know you are so i will not waste my time.” jae put himself to work setting the stove alight and placing the kettle atop it to boil. his mother had sent him some dried jasmine tea from home - perhaps that would settle his stomach and distract him from the strain in his thigh. “i’ve survived more than a little rain and sadness, zorkin.”

     when : evening , — of december 1920 .      where : lobby of the nightingale       who : @bratvaborn​

gone for a year , back again . he ‘ s returned to moscow with a plethora of feelings , packing them up tightly and storing them away to be examined and processed at a later date , later being entirely undefined . a month goes by , settling slowly into a routine that has thrown every other day into chaos , all aleksei seems to summon up is a feeling of precision . a greater level of restless , too , somewhere in the neighborhood of simmering but not quite .

he rises with this precision . he speaks to others with the grey of it coloring his voice because it is fine and well to be the apex predator amongst the bratva of russia but aleksei refuses to have it let him grow complacent ; insists on still sleeping with one eye open . he dons a well-known bitterness like a familiar coat . bitterness , because even though plans for the volki ’ s moscow are starting to come to fruition , the bend of his bones under such emotion translates to vigilance . 

that vigilance is what he is acting on while he accesses the vault at the nightingale . quick job , but one that needs to be done . aleksei does a cursory inventory sweep of their assets to ensure they are intact after witnessing a cremation — it is the gold really that he is worried about , with its low melting point ; he doesn ’ t care much for any ashy traces of the body other than filing these sights away for a critique on clean up jobs . the door shuts heavy behind him , locks resolutely in place , as aleseki ascends from the catacombs of the volki ’ s own creation . when he exits into the lobby he is able to lose himself to a swathe of spectators — post - performance crowd — stars still shining bright in their eyes because of the heavens they have seen played out on the stage . there is casual halo of glamour to the sphere of the space , a kind that aleksei seems to avoid ever since his winter palace days .

the sovietnik manages to palm a flyer to see what has just let out when some one sidles up to him . he is intending on getting in and out and is not in the mood for conversation and aleksei fully intends on looking up and saying so . 

he feels his mouth press into a flat line on reflex at the sight of a familiar gaze , expression falling back on the cold neutral face he uses whenever he has to deal with difficult politicians .     ❛ jaehyun , ❜     he greets,     ❛ how are you? ❜     it’ ‘ s not quite a ‘ i will not be discussing our last encounter ’ but it is close enough to it that he is sure the sting of his intent is felt .  

he and natalia have become the pair of  jewels in the nightingale’s crown. the ballet pulls crowds every night, and here, in the aftermath of hours of hard work, he is bathed in the adoration of patrons and audience members alike. he flits about the crowd, accepting gratitude, adulations, sometimes flowers from women, and propositions from those whos wallets as thick and heavy as the diamonds around their necks, or, on occasion, their wives’. 

there is a respect for his art form here, the audience dresses themselves in their finest silks and feathers to watch it, and the volki weave between them in their black suits and steel-capped boots with their cigarettes smoking from the corners of their mouth. jaehyun knew they were here, he knew vladimir operated this place like he did the garnizon, the racetrack, the boneyard. normally he did not bat an eye for the wolves, they all looked the same in their inky dark coats, but for a few he knew by name. 

the flyer in the sovietnik’s hand lauds his name as the principal daseur noble - yason yi - but the name he knows him by is his own, brought with him on the boat from his homeland and as he stands beside him, arms crossed and expression resolute, it spills out laced in aleksei’s accent. “i have been better, aleksei. much better.” he looks him over, up and down, the slashes of black kohl that delicately lined his eyes on-stage making his gaze appear intense, swan-like, and absolutely disapproving. 

“i had assumed you were dead.” his tone was more amused than kind. it had been barely gone wartime the last time they had seen each other, and jaehyun had been thin and recovering from the wound in his thigh. time had made him bigger, stronger, healthier, sucessful again. it bought him a certain amount of smugness to face the man who had so disappeared off the face of the earth now. “turns out you were just running.” coward. “though what from, i could not say.” 

“I am not here for you either–”  Perhaps that was a bit rude, so he quickly added (with a rather broad gesture at the body as well), “I wanted to come find him too. They were saying he was a Romanov and–” I wanted to see for myself, to confirm that there was another dead branch among their dying lineage “–just curious, is all. Guess he was important enough to warrant a second glance from the great leytenant. May I be graced with the same blessing once they lay my soul to rest.” Preferably not floating among debris, though by the looks of this conversation, he may as well purchased a spot next to the bloated corpse as well. Upon hearing the other’s request, Konstantin took the card between his thumb and index finger, scanning the address in silence. Several comments came to mind (yet none reached his lips): 1) he was already late for work with this stupid little detour– this mission would keep him out of commission almost entirely for the night if he was lucky, tomorrow as well if he was not  2) the address was a hour’s walk and it felt like two, given the state of the weather 3) didn’t they have stupid, blubbering tryhards for jobs like this?

He drew his index finger along the edge of the card in thought. “You require my assistance over that of a shestyorka not because you want me to wait outside their windows and familiarize myself with their movements, but because you fear the children are ill..? Or am I misunderstanding the intent?” Kon carefully pocketed the paper at last, “Otherwise, I fear I am not as stealthy as you envision me to be; I will do my best, though my abilities align with other practices.” 

maksim merely waited for him to dig himself out of the hole he had created with his words. he was a patient man, if not a tolerant one. “ah yes, your little vendetta. i doubt that man was a romanov - either that or his fall from grace was a longer topple than the canal bank to the water.” another pensive sigh of cigarette smoke. “he was working for a rival bratva. that was his crime. and clearly sycophancy is yours.” romanov or not, maksim could not care less. 

“sending a medik is less conspicuous. and it kills two birds with one stone.” the man of that house was known to be a violent soul, better to have the children seen to while he was spied on. “my intents are not the concerns of a glorified field nurse, zorkin. stealth is not of the essence, but subtlety is.” he fixes konstantin in his gaze. “if you can present me with worthy intel, i will see to it that you are rewarded. do i make myself clear, boy?” 

“You are so lucky I’m not that cat– I would have soiled your pillows for being such a terrible host.” Was he there a bit too often than he should be? Of course– but Natya was a close friend (the closest out of the handful he would actually consider friends) and though she had an insufferable roommate, no dead faced, wide shouldered dancer would shoo him away from the comforts of her home. Konstantin carefully placed the mug of tea on the coffee table before stretching, almost cat like, to turn the radio on a bit louder so it can drown out Jae’s movements. Deciding that he was much more comfortable reclining instead, he slumped against the couch cushions instead. “You look like someone threw you into the river,” he commented, watching the other, “How are you able to pirouette but you still do not know how to use an umbrella?”

“mmm. but that cat, at least, cannot talk.” he busies himself putting his things away from work. “and does not steal out of our pantry.” natya, of course, would not call it stealing, and maybe it wasn’t, but any excuse to grumble at konstantin was taken. he rolled his eyes without bothering to hide his displeasure as he might at the theatre as he stretched himself out, laying claim. 

“get your feet off my couch. 그것 참 역겹다.” jaehyun sat down on the floor by the door and began peeling himself out of his wet coat, and water-logged boots that had soaked into his dance leggings below. “i forgot it this morning and i didn’t want to hang around at the theatre. there are worse things than a little rain.” 

noses nearly touching as natalia leaned, core tight and leg extended behind her, she couldn’t help but smile a little more genuinely. not many things could draw that sort of emotion out of her, but her best friend was one of the few. 

she lowered her heels, arches aching after spending an evening on pointe, wrinkling her nose as his lips made contact with her head. “i’m sweaty,” she warned unnecessarily, leaning on the barre backstage to unlace her pointe shoes. the protectiveness in his voice made her roll her eyes and she patted his cheek teasingly. “careful. he’s a patron, and if you’re going to make my job harder i’ll send you back home before me.”

“i am well aware.” he smiled, running a hand through his hair which he could feel was damp at his temples before sitting against the wall under the barre to remove his shoes and undo the stirrup of his tights. “he is? i’ve never seen him around here before.” jaehyun snickered as he began to stretch weary, overworked limbs. “he looks like a creep.”  

it worried him, the way these patrons attached to natalia - of course, they stood no chance, watching her from the red velvet seats under the spotlight of the stage, the tutu she wore sparkling under the lamps, he imagined it was enough to have all of them on the edge of their chairs. “no way - i’m not going home alone to deal with your little live-in pest on my own.” 

spears  of  ice  are  impaled  into  her  back  and  she  is  grateful  ,  at  the  least  ,  that  she  has  her  spine  towards  him  .  for  at  the  very  least  ,  those  words  cannot  impale  her  heart  as  she  currently  sits  .      “  narvaéz    cantarero  ,  ”      she  corrects  ,  though  it  is  not  as  gentle  a  tone  she  would  use  if  correcting  someone  else  .  she  is  not  sure  if  he  does  it  to  spite  her  ,  because  he  does  not  pay  attention  ,  or  if  he  cares  that  little  to  remember  .  even  so  ,  she  has  learned  the  russian  forms  of  names  ,  the  diminutives  ,  and  the  sweet  names  to  call  one  another  .  the  least  he  ,  of  all  people  ,  could  do  ,  given  that  she  has  been  around  kolya  for  almost  three  years  ,  is  give  the  same  respect  to  her  .  she  does  open  his  mouth  to  respond  to  his  first  question  ,  to  say  that  he  should  be  back  within  the  hour  if  all  goes  well  .  rather  ,  her  mouth  fishes  as  he  waves  a  hand  and  she  arches  a  delicate  brow  .      “  given  that  he  left  me  sitting  as  i  am  ,  "      she  ,  as  if  for  emphasis  ,  presses  down  on  softly  on  the  keys  and  draws  a  melancholy  chord  ,      ”  i  am  inclined  to  say  that  he  is  aware  .  “      a  pause  of  silence  before  she  twists  to  face  him  more  fully  ,      "  is  there  something  that  i  can  play  for  you  while  you  are  here  ?  ”

maksim chuckles. “apologies.” she took the bait. he could not care less about her spanish naming customs, they were not in spain after all. her tone is pointed, and to anyone else it would have been met with the harshest of words, but he knows the affinity that nikolai has for this girl, and for that reason only, he merely raises a brow at the slight. she has a flair for the dramatics, he thinks, as her emphatic chord echoes around the room, but he supposes she is pretty enough, and adept in the kind of arts that kolka values - that must explain it, why he has formed a weakness for this girl who so often haunts the household. 

“i prefer it when nikolai plays.” the leytenant says pointedly, sitting himself down on the couch to wait for their common friend, and lighting a cigarette with the lack of haste he is so well known for. “better yet, you tell me - the moscow symphony, are they any good?” he invests his money in the visual arts, in artists working in the studios of moscow and st petersburg, but music has always been nikolai’s niche. “i bought kolka tickets to see them play, but you would know better than i whether or not they are worth his ear.” 

“Not a fan of parks? Not even when they’re filled with children and laughter and the occasional brooding, sad faced protagonist?” He cooed, stuffing his hands into his pockets now as he soaked in the man’s presence. Kon didn’t have a death sentence– to insult a higher up would surely lead to an accident involving him and a rather putrid river bed, but that mouth of his carried him from chicken shack to the home of a Duchess. It was difficult to turn off on a whim, particularly when faced with someone of uttermost importance; still, he chewed on the inside of his cheek and frowned.  “You still have not told me how I may be of assistance tonight, or are you simply passing by?”

maksim raised his brow in answer to the medik’s question as if the response should be obvious. he was not the sort of man who liked parks or squealing children at all. this boy reminded him a little of a child, dainty and small and constantly biting his tongue. 

“i am not here for you.” he blew a cloud of smoke out into the air between them, as cool and collected as the icy sheen collecting on the canal. “i am here for him.” he nodded out to where a faint shape could be seen bobbing on the water too far away and too deathly still to be a wayward swimmer. “i was intending on paying you a visit, actually. but you have saved me a trip to that awful prison in which you lurk.” he pulls a notecard out of his pocket with an address written on it in impossibly neat handwriting. “i want you to pay a visit to the ivanovs. the little ones have not been showing up to school.” he holds the card out to zorkin. “linger, take as long as you need. i want to know why, and what their father has to do with it.” he levels the boy in a blue stare. “can you do that, medik?” it was not a question, though it was posed like one. 

it  was  early  enough  that  only  one  or  two  of  the  fighters  were  present  within  the  den ,  most  still  sleeping  off  their  adventures  of  the  night  before ,  but  fyodor  was  a  constant  in  this  space ;  the  heartbeat  of  the  building  in  much  the  same  way  his  father  was .  he  can  no  longer  train  the  way  he  once  did ,  but   (   to  the  displeasure  of  one  medik  in  particular   )   he  continues  to  make  attempts  on  as  many  mornings  as  he  can .  an  argument  made  about  a  teacher  needing  to  stay  sharp  themselves ,  and  a  smile  to  ignore  the  feeling  he  knows  he’s  likely  making  worse .  however ,  he  is  pulled  from  the  bag  by  the  sound  of  knocking .  turning  towards  the  door ,  he  motions  for  the  stranger  to  come  in .

‘   good morning ,   ’   he  returns,  somewhat  curious  about  the  man  and  cannot  help  the  habit  of  sizing  up  those  who  enter   —   an  old  habit  of  a  fighter ,  repurposed  for  the  use  of  the  recruiter .  he  looked  athletic  enough ,  and  truthfully  fyodor  was  of  the  mindset  that  if  you  were  someone  who  was  willing  to  put  in  work ,  wanted  to  be  there ,  then  you  were  worth  having .  however ,  he  still  doesn’t   know   that  that  is  the  reason  for  the  other’s  appearance ,  so  he  remains  quiet  on  that  front .   ‘   that’d  be  me .  pleasure  to  meet  you ,  mr .   …   ?   ’

“oh, uh, yi. mr. yi.” he says, distracted by the way he is so clearly being sized up. “yason - or rather, jaehyun. it’s a pleasure to meet you, mr. rakovsky-nim.” his mother was very clear in her letters - just because you are so far from home, be polite, use the honorifics i taught you when you were a boy if you are going to call in on someone you do not know quite yet. “i am sorry to call in on you unannounced at your place of work.” he looked around at the den, a little amused by the similarities in appearance to the studio in which he himself trained despite boxing and ballet being seemingly opposite physical arts. 

“my mother met yours and it seems they are of the mind that we should meet.” the danseur smiles shyly and ducks his head a little. “그녀는 내 한국어가 연습에서 벗어나 걱정.” he looks up at fyodor and wonders if he speaks their mother tongue at all. he has a russian name and a russian life, perhaps a russian tongue only too. he had been excited at the prospect of having someone to speak to, other than the woman at the markets who sold cabbage and very rarely had time to converse. 

where: the driveway of the volkov estate

always people in this house. it is never as quiet as it used to be, and although max is very good at locking himself in his office on the third storey to mine his way through the books and the letters, it seems as though that is becoming not good enough. his car, spotlessly clean and astronomically expensive, grates on the gravel as he pulls to a stop outside the formidable estate. he rolls his eyes when he sees natalya on the stairs. the girl is a liability, he had insisted numerous times, but on deaf ears, it seemed. 

“miss khvostovsky.” he nods, polite even consumed with distrust. “good morning.” the leytenant tucks his ledger under one arm and offers his hand for her bags as he caught up to her and they walked up the driveway. “allow me.” a criminal he may be, but that was no excuse to act like one. “do you know if vladimir or nikolai are home today?

when: late evening

where: the nightingale

the muscles in his legs scream in a way that, if given sound, would resemble the way the violin strings screamed when they were plucked out of tune. he held natalia steadily by her waist in their final arabesque penché. it looked as if she were made of iron and water all at once as he looked up at her in the usual familiar awe. the audience in the nightingale applauded and as the heavy curtain dropped he let himself drop his resolute smile along with it. 

the orchestra flourished and then lulled and they could hear the chatter through the curtain as the audience removed themselves from their seats. he let nat take her footing again before getting up from his kneeling position and pressing a kiss to her hair. “good show natya.” it was accompanied by a little chuckle. there was never a bad one when they danced together. “i don’t like the way the old git in the first row was looking at you. if he tries to speak to you after, i’ll knock his teeth out.”