splix: (viggo nikolai/kirill embrace)
[personal profile] splix
Title: Ritual
Author: Alex
Pairing/Character(s): Implied Nikolai/Kirill.
Rating: PG
Word count: 200
Summary: Kirill has performed this many times before.
Written as a [late] Halloween treat for [livejournal.com profile] tsarina.





With slow but precise movements, he lays out supplies like a priest setting an altar. Face flannel, pristine white. A metal bowl with ice, condensation beading on its shining surface. A nearly empty tube of antibiotic ointment. His hands do not shake only because he exerts the last of his will over them.


How could you?


He can smell himself. Vodka, odorless when ingested, rank when sweated out, necessary for all confrontations. Too much, this time, to perceive the sudden light of speculation in his father’s eyes.


Why, Kirill? What is he to you?


The tap squeals as he turns it on and runs icy water into the bowl. He curls the flannel into a tight cone, dips it in the water, and touches it to his lip. A scarlet rose blooms on the white cloth. Below the vodka, he detects the familiar and strangely comforting tang of fear.


Papa ---


It isn’t true.


Get out. Гомик.


And even if it were, a prince does not run. He wrings out the cloth; pink water swirls clockwise. His steady hands apply the ointment.


He knows he can last a little while yet, balancing, the last practitioner of a dying faith.




End.



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