Intricacies of Torture

Having spent two weeks on the barren floor of a Russian cell, young Emir is barely keeping his head above the water. That is until he is placed under the foreign command of General Levkin - a man with other uses for him.

CW for the story containing wartime whump, abuse of power, and long-term captivity. Story is being updated again!

Taglist: @straight-to-the-pain @heathenville @quirkykayleetam @yet-another-heathen  @undertheburrow​ @lektricfergus @punchhimagain @whumpasaurus101

i think my favorite part about their dynamic is the mutual toxicity of it. (this is all my interpretation, apologies if im crazy and mischaracterizing your blorbos) nick can be the awful evil shit that he is to hayko but it doesnt change the fact that he needs hayko more than hayko needs him. he had to force hayko to become dependent on him psychologically and, at one point, financially, but nick's need for hayko sparked the second they met. and it's almost enough to make someone feel a little sympathetic for nick, nearly void of emotion and no possibility of a healthy connection to the one person in the world that makes him feel the things nobody else can spark in his brain (love, longing, the occasional vague remorse). and on hayko's end, he can hate nick for being awful but it doesn't change the fact that he feels intrinsically nick's and feels a sense of debt towards him for being the reason (many times over) that hayko is still alive to hate him at all. and, dare i say, hayko even feels a little bit of pity to the fact that he is nick's only source of almost-human emotion, and all of nick's violence towards him is more or less a fucked up coping mechanism for the feelings hayko stirs in him that he doesn't know what to do with. and hayko's resentment towards nick (while totally valid ofc) is also a coping mechanism for the fact that nick can calm and comfort and understand him in a way no other person can! they're such parallels to one another and they feel everything about eachother all the time 🥹 no emotions are mutually exclusive when it comes to their dynamic 🥹 i love them after years and years i always come back to reread certain chapters when i need a little (discomforting) comfort read 🫶

i know you haven't posted in a while but i hope you're doing well! 

-anon formerly known as slaynon

Thank you so much for this poignant analysis, slaynon! I've always appreciated your readership and I'm doing well enough to be currently working on some stuff to put out soon, hopefully!

Your understanding of my blorbos is spot on, honestly. Nick and Hayko are so intertwined and codependent, so mutually destructive and maladapted, but also so profoundly lonely and understanding of one another's loneliness. It's been a joy to write their twisted relationship and I can't wait to write more of it.

Btw, I don't think I'll ever abandon this series. These are characters who have been with me for eight years now and they take up such incredible space in my mind that I will always want to add to them and change them and make them better (and worse ;)).

grats

THANKS KWEEN!