Chapter Text
When she died, she took everything in the world with her. You remember— as if the scene were constantly playing before your eyes— her dying breaths, rattling and wet, your head against her hollow chest, her hands still and too light in your hair. You wished she’d grab you and hurt you with them, use them against you to prove that she was alive, still fighting, still angry and indignant and proud– but she didn’t, and wouldn’t.
Wouldn’t hurt you, wouldn’t hold you, wouldn’t look at you again. Won’t.
There’s something about the current world that’s a bit more fitting for you. It’s hell outside, but that’s always how you’ve seen it anyway– the sun may as well have already been deadly on contact with the skin– you wouldn’t know the way you shut yourself in to shut out everything else.
Five years hoping she’d make good that promise to “haunt the shit out of” you if you never got out of your old man’s house, but to no avail. You tried the alternative route, the drinking and swallowing the pain away, the return-to-Jesus your mother always prayed for, the living-life-to-the-fullest way– but you’d failed at every turn. So this is what you end up with. Walls that seem to close in on you, claustrophobic and empty, dreary, Soviet minimalist and dismal like when you were a boy, but you can’t bear the thought of being away from her.
So you wait.
There’s a part of you that, every time you hear a knock at the door, hopes it will be her standing on the other side– hopes that somehow, she’ll find a way back to you. You’d take her in if the skin was rotting off her bones. If she was horrible and deformed nearly beyond recognition. Even if she killed you– really, that would be the least of your concerns.
The other, better part of you hopes that she’ll be spared the extremely unlikely fate of becoming a visitor. You’re not sure that visitors really are undead– it’s entirely possible that they’re aliens, or demons, or some type of cryptid that hunts for survival rather than for sport. Nobody seems to know anything, and if they do, they’re not telling you.
You man your post today, shotgun resting on your right thigh as you smoke a cigarette, looking dead out the window at the pale man swaying, face unmoving, in the sickly greenish light from the nearly-dead streetlamps. You’re filled with disgust at him, bottom lip twitching as you try to keep your expression neutral, eyes dead and unemotional. He doesn’t scare you, not exactly– you haven’t been afraid of death for a long time– but you’ll keep him out even if it costs you your own life, for the sake of the little girl sobbing in your kitchen.
You made her a makeshift bed out of spare blankets and couch cushions, and she’s been spending all hours of the day there for the last two days since she ran barefoot from the burning remains of her house to yours. You’ve hardly been able to get her to eat a thing. She’s been insisting that she can’t eat without her daddy, that she needs to wait for him, but you’ve heard the growling of her stomach and the hollows below her eyes.
She looks so much older than she is, the sweet thing. So much older than a girl of her age should ever have to look. She was playing in her yard just a week ago, her father pushing her on the swings while she giggled and yammered on about something or another– you remember being annoyed at the low level of noise. You wish you could hear something so joyful out of her now. Something rises in your throat when you see her or think about her, and you cough it away, the backs of your eyes tingling with unshed tears.
Just when you’re thinking you should go check on her or the man from the bar in your living room, there’s a knock at the door. You come back to yourself, eyes moving away from the window and to the door.
Behind it is a man with a lop-sided grin and a white T-shirt with something written in English over his left peck. He’s a douchebag and keeps going on about some ponzi scheme or something like that, and you roll your eyes even as you open the door for him. He’s going to be fun to have around. Still, you need the company. You’re unwilling to let any harm come to your guests at least, and you figure the more the merrier. You also think a visitor probably wouldn’t impersonate someone so unpleasant if the goal was to get let in anywhere.
While you ponder the possibility of him using reverse psychology, and to what extent visitors are capable of using reverse psychology, or, in fact, any sort of psychological manipulation, there’s another knock at your door. You’re brought back to yourself.
This time, it’s a teenager with a sour attitude– she can’t be a day older than fifteen, but you guess she’s even younger. Pity snakes through your insides. She’s snarky and rude (of course, that’s just what you need more of…), but you let her in anyway. You might be hardened, but you’re not so cruel as to turn away a helpless little girl. And now you’ve got two in your kitchen, against your own will. You sigh and sit back down, zoning out as the night passes by without another peep.
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝
The sun is beginning to rise before you decide to head back to your room. When you pass the kitchen, it’s quieter than it was before– the little girl seems to have finally fallen asleep. However, when you listen closer, you can hear another voice sniffling– it must be the teenager. The voice is muffled and faint, but you can tell it’s coming from a child. Once again, pity stirs within you and you swallow the lump forming in your throat. You’re bone-tired, though, your whole body heavy when you walk down the hallway. You know that, despite this, it’s going to be impossible for you to sleep just yet. Your mind is whirring with thoughts of the pale visitor outside your house, the two girls crying in your kitchen, the image of your neighbor’s house illuminated with red and golden flames.
You used to stare into open flames often when you were a child. Your mother had grave concerns about you becoming a pyromaniac. Your father thought that that was further evidence of you being a demon-child, and you did whatever you could to prove him right. But really, there was nothing you liked about the destruction of fire– you thought of it as living, as a thing too alien for people to understand. You were convinced it could think, feel… its movements were too flowing and intentional to be coincidence.
In your teenage years, there was a kitchen fire in your house. Half of your mother’s hair was singed clean off, and she lamented about it for more than a year afterwards. By then, you were old enough to know that fire was not literally alive– still, you couldn’t help but feel betrayed by it. How could something so beautiful bring about such pain? How could it turn on you in this way, when you had thought of it as something peaceful and profound?
You had the same feeling seeing your neighbor’s house burn down. How could fire do this? It didn’t seem random, it seemed like willful cruelty— to take that little girl away from her family, from the only place she’d ever known as home… you hope you can provide a home for her here, but you can’t help but feel that it’s extremely doubtful. You are not particularly warm or kind, and it would be a bad joke if ever someone were to call you nurturing or responsible. You only hope to bring her comfort. You think you can manage that, if you’re very careful.
Before you tuck yourself into bed, you push open the door to the living room to find Yesenin sitting with a beer between his hands on your couch, staring at the floor. He looks up at you at the sound of the door creaking open and grunts his acknowledgement before sinking back further into the couch and taking another sip of the beer he’s stolen from your refrigerator. You’re distantly annoyed by it, but he’s the best company (and the closest to a peer) you’ve got in the house, so you sit down beside him and crack open your own beer that you’ve been saving.
“Cheers,” He mumbles, and holds out his (your) beer in offering. You tap the metal can with your own and take a swig, the foam and bubbles combining together on your tongue. It’s always nice after a long day. You see Yesenin grimace out of the corner of your eye and say something. You don’t care.
“Mikhail,” He repeats himself, “I said you’ve got awful taste. This stuff is crap” He gestures to the beer can in his hand.
“Oh,” you say, and look over at him. Now you’re sincerely annoyed.
“Man, you dig my beer out of my fridge and complain about it to me, the owner of the beer and the fridge,” You sigh, frustrated, and take another sip. Yesenin only laughs.
“You know, that’s fair enough,” He says, and follows your lead, taking another sip from his own beer can "Beggars can’t be choosers,”
You close your eyes and huff, crossing your arms. “Glad you’re now realizing that,” You cross one leg over the other as you lean back, successfully distracted but now irritated and made uncomfortably hot by the sun now peeking through the blinds. The heat is making you even more sleepy, which makes you itch and want for your bed and to be out of your jeans and sweater. Still, you force yourself to stay with Yesenin on the couch until you’re actively falling asleep– it’s the only reliable way you’re able to get to bed nowadays.
“How’d a bum like you get such a nice place anyway, huh?” Asks Yesenin conversationally. You decide to indulge him.
“I wouldn’t call it a “nice place”, would you? One bedroom, one bath?”
Yesenin shakes his head.
“This is at least a two bedroom place. The study has a closet. That makes it a bedroom, friend.”
You laugh a little “How the hell would a bum like you know that?”
He laughs with you “Agh— my wife was in the real estate business. Talked my damn ear off on the daily about bedroom-to-bathroom-ratio and square footage and shit like that.”
You huff. Then pause. “‘Was?’”
Yesenin grunts again in agreement and takes a rather large swig of his beer.
“Oh, yeah. She left my sorry ass a few months ago. Doesn’t want anything to do with me,”
You frown, and look down at your feet. You take another sip of beer, not quite knowing what to say.
“Sorry to hear that,” You say. Yesenin waves his hand dismissively.
“What about you? No special lady in your life to keep this place warm?”
You grimace and shake your head. Since Yesenin was getting on your nerves earlier, you find it a fitting revenge to make him uncomfortable. “She’s dead,” You tell him, and you can feel him stiffen next to you. You take a swig of beer without looking at him.
“Jesus, man. Christ.” He shakes his long head, and you can see his hand lifting to his forehead out of the corner of your eye. “I’m sorry, man, that’s awful.”
You shrug. It is awful.
“S’alright. She’s better off without me anyway.” You say to alleviate the tension. Yesenin lets out a relieved chuckle too.
“Cheers to that,” He says, and offers his beer can up again. Again, you clink it with yours, now half-empty. Mercifully, he doesn’t try to breach the subject any further, or ask any invasive questions. You’re grateful for his presence. You both drink until the room has an unbearable swelter, and you finally feel you’re tired enough to roll into bed and fall asleep.
You bid Yesenin goodnight before heading back to your room, slightly disoriented and dizzy. You’re not drunk off of one beer, but the oppressive heat it is making any effects that the small amount of alcohol would have on you far worse and far more unpleasant.
As soon as you close the door to your room, you strip off your sweater and kick off your jeans. You fall onto your comforter wearing only your boxers and a layer of sticky sweat. You groan, frustrated, and splay your arms out to try to disperse your body heat as much as possible.
You’re tired as all hell, but as you lay on your back in the dim light of your room, your mind begins to shuffle through your go-to masturbatory fantasies. You frown, shifting in bed in an attempt to stop it, but your brain has already seemed to settle with resolve on getting off before you go to bed. You shift once more to see if there will be any stifling effect on your twitching dick, but to no avail.
Opening your eyes a crack, you shove a hand down the front of your pants and begin running your hand up and down yourself, mind still shuffling. Tonight, you land on one of your favorite— or, at least, most commonly-used— memories of a young man (too young for you) named Sascha. You’d had sex with him more than a few times during the months you’d spent in St. Petersburg during the worst of your mania in the year following your wife’s death.
The months themselves were mostly a confused blur of the flashing lights in the punk venues you’d haunted in your younger years, the feel of hot bodies pressed against your own, the sound of too-loud music hammering against your eardrums… you were high on something or another for the vast majority of those months. Really, it would be a task to think of a significant period of time you were sober there.
This particular night– the one you’re thinking of now– you’d dragged Sascha back to one of the seedy motels you knew of that wouldn’t care about two men spending the night together in a room with a single bed– this must have been directly after homosexuality had been legalized, because before then, you wouldn’t have taken the risk even at a motel like this. Really, it would have been safer to get a two-bed room regardless, but you were high off your ass on a combination of Xanax and some miscellaneous uppers, so you really didn’t have any presence of mind left to care.
Sascha had been holding your hand as you dragged him to the bed, your dick already throbbing between your legs as you pushed him down onto the thick comforter. You let out a breath as you think of how he looked below you, helpless and spread out, his slender legs already pressing apart for you. You run your thumb over your cockhead and linger on the image for a moment until your mind skips forward a few minutes, and you’re remembering how he looked looking over his shoulder as you pressed your fingers into him, fucking into him much more sloppy than you would if you were sober. He was grateful for it anyway, though, back arched and eyes lidded and dazed. He was always so good for it, willing and pliable… fuck. Your hand tightens around the base of your cock and you stare up straight at the ceiling for a second.
You remember how you grabbed his hair tightly as you pushed into him, cock pulsing desperately as you did and Sascha whining loud enough to wake the neighbors. You loved how loud he was, your cock achingly hard inside of him, always so needy and vocal. You chased those noises as you fucked him, one hand pulling his hair back so he had no choice but to look at you, the other digging into the flesh of his ass, hot and plush.
You stroke yourself in time with the film playing in your head of Sascha and you. You’re desperately hard as you imagine yourself quickening your pace, hips snapping into him and out again, obscene noises between the two of you, your hand beneath his stomach stroking him off in time as you reached the exhilarating last few moments before your climax.
You remember just how Sascha sounded moaning your name, his fingers clawing at your arm beneath him.
“Misha, Misha, oh, fuck, oh please, Misha,”
Your breath is quickening now with your pace.
“Please Misha, f-feels so good, don’t stop, don’t stop, Misha, please please—”
You remember looking to your left through the open window as you leaned over him, pressing your body flush against his, hips pushing forward and forward as the sound of flesh slapping against flesh filled the room. The skyline of St. Petersburg was visible from across the parking lot, the lights from the buildings glowing and meshing together as your vision blurred from arousal and the cocktail of drugs in your system. You drove into Sascha as he kept calling your name, kept begging, kept cutting himself off, words tumbling into desperate moans and pleas.
You’re momentarily lost in the memory, breaths coming fast and heavy as you work yourself to completion. You remember how you felt inside of him, remember him tight and hot around you, his sweet, feathery voice broken and disjointed by your doing. You remember saying something filthy into his ear as you jerked him off relentlessly quickly, your hand tight around him, and listening to him keen at the sound of it.
Your mind was addled and thoughtless then, pushing into him and out and snapping back in, your only drive to keep fucking him and fucking him until you spilled deep into his guts, wrenching a groan out of your throat as he came over your hand nearly at the same time. You climax at the same time as you do in your memory, gasping through your nose, your hips stuttering into your hand as your cock throbs. You keep stroking yourself through the aftershocks until it hurts and the vision of Sascha squirming beneath you fades and disappears.
You exhale and push yourself up on your elbows as you tuck yourself back into your underwear, reach for the tissues on your bedside table and clean yourself up. Now you’re well and truly exhausted. You can already feel sleep creeping in, crawling up your back and settling into you.
You toss the dirtied tissue into the trash can below you and then turn over and lie down on your side, grabbing for a spare pillow to hold to your chest. It’s been a long time since you’ve thought of Sascha during your ‘alone time’ as your wife would call it. You wonder what’s brought him to your mind this time— you try not to think too hard about it.
As you tuck your nose into the pillow in your arms, body relaxing into the bed, you can’t help but linger on him. Sascha. You wonder about him from time to time. You hope he’s doing well. You still feel guilty about the way you left him.
In the quiet moments between wakefulness and sleep, Sascha is the one between your arms, slender and quietly contemplative as he always was. You’re living through a memory of him now, one in which his hair tickles your nose as you hold him, and his cold fingers trace lines across your back. He’s saying something to you about constellations or poetry or something pretentious and exasperating like that, and you smile despite yourself at his particular way of speaking and are briefly blissfully content with his presence, the smell of his shampoo, the sound of his voice, his dark eyes roaming your face. Then, the memory of her in your arms in his stead fills you with bitter resentment, and you frown, wishing suddenly that you were higher and that he was just one of your faceless hookups that you could forget all details of in the morning.
But he’s himself, and you can tell that he’s really beginning to like you, and the kind thing to do would be to shut him down entirely and kick him out now, out into the cold, so he loses any attachment he might be forming. But, selfishly, you can’t bring yourself to. And even more selfishly, you think you really do like him back. The penultimate selfish act is hating yourself for liking him. You’re dissatisfied with yourself because of it, Sascha would be devastated, and Alisa would be shaking her head at you, scowling, saying something like “This is exactly what I told you not to do, Misha. If I’m dead and you’re alive, why do you act like you’re the dead one? Why won’t you just live for me? That is all I ever asked of you.”
And you’d all be right, really. The situation is immensely disappointing for everyone involved— or, perceived to be involved. The longer you drag it out the worse it becomes. Still, you pull Sascha to your chest and feel him sigh into you, his cool arms looping around your too-warm back. You try to think of Alisa in his place, try so desperately if only to prolong the inevitable conclusion of your growing feelings for him, but you fail. It’s only him with you, chest rising and falling against your own, both of your breathing slowing and evening as you fall into a much-too restful sleep.