Page 9 of Ascendent
Blyad,how could anything possibly work between them? Was Ilya right?
“I’ll go talk to Ilya.” Sergey reached for Sasha, his fingers brushing through Sasha’s hair. Sasha didn’t move.
Sergey pulled on his trousers, grabbed a sweater, and marched out to the front room. Ilya sat hunched over the dining table, glowering into his tumbler of vodka. He spun the glass on the tabletop, making the crystal warble against the old wood.
“That was uncalled for.” Sergey growled as he padded to Ilya, collapsing in the chair opposite him. “Sasha worked for you. He’s done nothing but serve his country.”
“That what you call that in there?” Ilya growled and waved one hand toward Sergey’s bedroom. He didn’t look up. “His ‘service’ to you, Mr. President, doesn’t change what he did.”
Sergey scrubbed his face. “Ilya, what is this about?”
Ilya knocked back his vodka, downing everything in one gulp. He dropped the tumbler on the table, the crystal twanging as it settled. “I have been your friend for more years than he has been alive.”
“And?”
“Are yousurethis is what you really want?”
“You’ve never been homophobic before.”
“That’s not fucking it. I don’t care that you want to fuck a man.”
Sergey kept quiet. He didn’t try and correct Ilya. What he wanted, more than anything, was for Sasha to make love to him.
“I meanhim. Sasha. He’s not stable. Everything he does proves it. We’ve known him foronlymonths. Whoishe? What does he really want out of this? Out ofyou?”
“You think he’susingme—”
“I don’t know him enough to trust him with you. Andyoudon’t know him enough. You didn’t think he’d leave you, but he did. What else don’t we know?”
What else, indeed. The things Sergey knew, really knew, about Sasha might fill a page. But didn’t going through hell with a man show you the depth of his character? Didn’t surviving the end of the world together reveal the center of a man’s soul? Sasha had sacrificed his life for Sergey’s insurgency, gave himself up for the hope he’d had, the passion he’d had for Sergey’s vision of their country. He’d lived through that and had rededicated himself to Sergey. Always, rededicating himself to his vision of Sergey’s future, his hope, his dreams. He’d had a wall in his cabin devoted to Sergey and that future. Those couldn’t be the actions of a man who didn’t care.
“Ilya, I know I want to give this a chance. If it does not work, it does not work. But if it does…” He let his hands fall, palms hitting the table. “He makes me feel alive. More than even Irina did.”
“You were not this reckless with her. Or even with Natalia.”
“He makes me happy.”
Shaking his head, Ilya poured a second shot of vodka into his glass. He grabbed another tumbler and filled it for Sergey, then pushed it across the table. “Russia will fight you if they find out about this. They will eat you alive. You are supposed to be their savior. Not fall from grace.”
“I am a man, not a savior. I’m allowed to feel. I won’t make any excuses for this, or for us.”
“If you are smart, you will hide him. Putin hid his mistresses. There’s precedent for this.”
“I won’t be guilty of the things I fight against. We always said openness, transparency, honesty. Secrets are the downfall of this country.”
“If you want to get anything done, you’re going to have to keep this quiet.”
Silence. “We will. For a little while, at least.”
“For as long as he stays?” Ilya snorted into his vodka.
“Ilyukha—”
“I’m staying.” Sasha’s voice, his low rumble, broke through the apartment. Sergey twisted, looking back over his shoulder. Ilya froze. “I’m staying as long as Sergey will have me. As long as he wants me. Because I—” Sasha’s knuckles were white, his hands fisted. “I want— If he weren’t the president. If this wasn’t Russia, I’d—” His voice choked off. He looked away.
What would they be, if they were anyone else? Would Sasha still have the darkness inside him, the stain on his soul? Would Sergey still chase him to the ends of the earth? Was there any possibility in any other universe of their souls not combining, their love not sparking against each other? Or was theirs a fated love, star-crossed destinies meant to intertwine, no matter what? If so, thenwhyhad—
No. He couldn’t second guess the past. Sasha was here now. That was what mattered. They’d come back to the Kremlin together. They werehome.
