Page 188 of Golden Eagle

“You’re a civilian, now,” Kolya said, surprising him.

Nikita took another drag and spoke on the exhale, smoke swirling upward. “Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. Old habits,” he explained, when Kolya sent him a sideways, curious glance. Sometimes, he didn’t say – too often – he went through his days like he was still waiting for something. For a chance to revolt, for the moment to strike. He lived in a holding pattern, still, though he was in a new country, one in which he wasn’t a political puppet. Like the man who’d convinced a small cadre of brave souls to work toward a revival of empire with him.

Those days were long gone, but the mindset wasn’t. It was part of the reason, he suspected now, he’d tried to preserve boundaries between himself and Sasha. They hadn’t lived like two free creatures enjoying the trends and small joys of each decade, but like soldiers; spare, self-sacrificing, still waiting for the call to arms. Denying.

Well, Nik had lived like that. Sasha had thrown himself into each new music genre, each movie, each fashion trend. As joyous and carefree as he could while Nikita weighed him down. With an inward snort, he realized he was the ball-and-chain in this relationship.

He shook his head, stubbed out the last of his cigarette, and lit another. When he offered the pack to Kolya, he realized the other man was staring at him, brows knitted. “What?”

“You’re still not happy, are you?”

“Did coming back to life make you even more annoyingly perceptive?” he quipped, before he could think better of it, and wanted to kick himself.

But Kolya didn’t seem perturbed. No, in fact, the tiniest hint of a smile tweaked his lips at the corners. “No.” A frown, a brief shadow of one, flitted across his face, but then retreated. “It’s helping. My head, I mean.” He rapped it gently with his knuckles. “Being back with – with people I knew before. When I was me.”

“You’re still you,” Nikita said, a touch desperate, needing it to be so.

Another hinted smile, this one melancholy. “But you are sad,” Kolya said, and damn it, Nik had hoped that topic had been dropped.

He let out a deep, smoke-laced breath. “I’m not. It isn’t – I’m notsad.”

“You still hate yourself, then.”

“I–”

“You’re still punishing yourself.”

Nik shot him a glare. But he couldn’t argue. He’d been punishing himself – because he hated himself, and because the weight of guilt crushed relentlessly – since he was a boy, and it persisted still. Even after his confession; even after the ecstasy of Sasha in his arms. He still denied himself – and them. It was the reason Val had breathed hotly against his ear last night, and kissed him, and showed him a story worse than his own, worse than most people could have imagined.

Bind him.

He sighed. “I’m trying to do better.”

Kolya stared at him, silent, and Nikita fought the urge to shift his weight beneath the scrutiny.

“Things are different now,” he said, and heard the defensive edge in his voice. “Sasha and I – we can – it’s okay that we – and we are.” His jaw and throat felt tight, and he took another drag.

Kolya blinked at him, expression softening a fraction. “Do you think it bothers me?”

They’d shared an apartment in Moscow; had shared tents and bedrolls and rented rooms and train cars. He swallowed “Doesn’t it?”

“No. Not at all.” Softer, like he was explaining it, “You love him.”

Nikita glanced away.

“You always have.”

He took a few careful breaths, and nodded.

“You deserve to be happy, Nik.”

His eyes burned, and he took another drag, feeling helpless.

“Christ,” Kolya said. “I’ve felt like a balloon with its string cut this whole time, but lecturing you just brings me right back.”

Nikita couldn’t stop a startled laugh, and nearly choked on his cigarette.

Kolya chuckled, and that was a beautiful sound, after all these years. Nikita laughed until tears slipped down his face, and wiped them away with the back of his hand, pretending they were only mirth, and not also joy, and relief, and wonder, and grief, too.

---