![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cheslav_olekseiLater, Cheslav would always remember it was winter when Avdotia Isaeva died.
Cheslav Oleksei remembered the Siege as an eternal winter, even though he knew intellectually that the seasons must have changed during those two and a half years. Yet when he caressed the place in his memories that knew starvation and fear and aching desperation, squatting in bombed-out buildings and eating stringy meat nearly raw, taking his knife to the veins of a man for the first time and finding fleeting solace in the slow grind of hard flesh, that place, those memories, were grey and tinged with frost.
Now, there was real snow on the ground in front of the Isaev estate.
The estate stood as always, imposing and elegant, a tall historic townhouse facing the wide road. The snow around the curb been recently plowed but was blackened with mud from the tires of many recent visitors, like the first shadow of tarnish on silver.
Cheslav drove himself, and parked his white Moskvitch in front, instead of going around to the back like usual.
The night air felt crisp, and very heavy.
His breath streamed between his lips like smoke. Seeing it made him want for a cigarette.
There were few things Cheslav Oleksei denied himself, but he denied himself a cigarette now. Instead, his hand went absently to his pocket, and felt the weight of the bottle within.
Cheslav wore a black wool coat that spanned his broad shoulders and swirled around his boots as he walked up to the townhouse's front door. Above him, most windows were darkened save for a couple that were faintly backlit with the softest of warm glows.
No other signs of life.
He allowed it was possible that no one was home.
His heavy brow knit low over his dark eyes.
Cheslav had even features, for the most part, a straight Greek nose and squared-off chin, and a long, angular jaw. It was the thick brow that glided his face with a touch of menace, and betrayed his coarse birth.
Rather, both his jaw and his massive form, tall and thick with muscle like the butcher he'd once been, and Cheslav knew it mattered as much where you'd been as where you were.
He reached for the wrought iron knocker, but then changed his mind and rang the bell, instead.
Cheslav Oleksei remembered the Siege as an eternal winter, even though he knew intellectually that the seasons must have changed during those two and a half years. Yet when he caressed the place in his memories that knew starvation and fear and aching desperation, squatting in bombed-out buildings and eating stringy meat nearly raw, taking his knife to the veins of a man for the first time and finding fleeting solace in the slow grind of hard flesh, that place, those memories, were grey and tinged with frost.
Now, there was real snow on the ground in front of the Isaev estate.
The estate stood as always, imposing and elegant, a tall historic townhouse facing the wide road. The snow around the curb been recently plowed but was blackened with mud from the tires of many recent visitors, like the first shadow of tarnish on silver.
Cheslav drove himself, and parked his white Moskvitch in front, instead of going around to the back like usual.
The night air felt crisp, and very heavy.
His breath streamed between his lips like smoke. Seeing it made him want for a cigarette.
There were few things Cheslav Oleksei denied himself, but he denied himself a cigarette now. Instead, his hand went absently to his pocket, and felt the weight of the bottle within.
Cheslav wore a black wool coat that spanned his broad shoulders and swirled around his boots as he walked up to the townhouse's front door. Above him, most windows were darkened save for a couple that were faintly backlit with the softest of warm glows.
No other signs of life.
He allowed it was possible that no one was home.
His heavy brow knit low over his dark eyes.
Cheslav had even features, for the most part, a straight Greek nose and squared-off chin, and a long, angular jaw. It was the thick brow that glided his face with a touch of menace, and betrayed his coarse birth.
Rather, both his jaw and his massive form, tall and thick with muscle like the butcher he'd once been, and Cheslav knew it mattered as much where you'd been as where you were.
He reached for the wrought iron knocker, but then changed his mind and rang the bell, instead.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-03-07 02:36 am (UTC)"Only the prime cuts."
He gave Aleksandr's head a small shove, the rough affection of a blatnye man, for whom everything had to be couched in violence. With Aleksandr it was very gentle, a press of his fingertips against Aleksandr's wet skull.
Cheslav had not touched Aleksandr that way before, but somehow it seemed all right to do so now, as if another line had just been crossed between them.
He smiled absently as he continued soaping Aleksandr down, continuing on, drawing the washcloth over the ridged muscles of Aleksandr's stomach.
"I'm not always looking for leg-breakers and thugs, you realize. A thinking man, a passionate man, would be of great benefit to me. As would a loyal one."
Cheslav glanced up.
"But that's the thing, isn't it? He'd never leave the Ministry. He'd never leave you."
It had surprised him to hear Aleksandr speak at such length, and with such passion, about young Nika Liadov. His eyes and expression had come alive with a father's pride. Cheslav thought about how Liadov had spoken of Aleksandr in turn.
"You should have seen the both of them downstairs. Quite the pair. Lasha didn't want to let me up here. He didn't think he should let an outsider see you in your...state. And he thought I would make things worse. But his friend convinced him to let me try, that anything was better than watching you decay. 'That man is all the father I've ever had', he said."
Cheslav paused. He had finished washing Aleksandr's hips and stomach, and now let the cloth rest lightly at the small of his back, just over masculine swell of his buttocks.
He averted his gaze to just above Aleksandr's shoulder.
"I remember when my father died. I was twelve years old. He was a giant, larger than life. One day he just clutched his chest and staggered. Then he fell down. Heart attack, I guess."
There was a slight waver in his voice. It teared Cheslav up to speak of it, even now.
"I loved that man," he whispered.
He cleared his throat and shook his head.
Cheslav resumed washing, belatedly, reaching around Aleksandr's flank.
"Boys need their fathers, Shurik. No matter how old they are."