FIC: Visions of Sugarplums
Dec. 23rd, 2008 02:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
splixTitle: Visions of Sugarplums
Author: Alex
Fandom: Crossover – Eastern Promises/Anna Karenina
Pairing: Nikolai Luzhin/Alexei Vronsky
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 2701.
Archive: Rugbytackling.
Disclaimer: Not mine. No harm intended [though I'm sure Tolstoy would roll in his grave].
Feedback: Is treasured.
Thanks: to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kimberlite, for support, friendship, inspiration, and beta. Additional thanks to temve for her assistance re. consular operations.
Author's Note: A whimsical crossover to be sure, but bear with me. :)
Additional Note: Some allusions to my story Winter Chrysalides, but reading that is not necessary to understand this.
Summary: Christmas Eve in St. Petersburg.
A faint hiss of tape precedes the sweetly frantic woodwinds of Valse de flocons de neige. As Nikolai settles back with his book, his partner, Vasily Kovtun, glares at him in disgust. “Fuck’s sake, Luzhin, do you have to keep playing that crap?”
Nikolai turns a page, not bothering to respond. Anna Karenina has at last succumbed to Vronsky’s charms and kneels at his feet, wracked by remorse. Vronsky kneels with her, embracing her, uncomprehending and unable to cope with her misery.
“You could at least listen when I speak.”
With a soft sigh of infinite patience, Nikolai rests the book on his lap and gazes at Kovtun. He knows what Kovtun and others in the Petersburg office think of him. They dislike him, distrust his watchful quietude. For a nest of spies, they can be remarkably indiscreet at times. He feels the hostility of their gazes, hears the occasional whisper. Keep an eye on Luzhin, they murmur to one another. Mark my words, one way or another he’ll wind up stabbing you in the back. Can’t trust anyone with their nose always buried in a book. The service, in any incarnation, has never encouraged intellectualism in favor of action. Their current director, it’s said, is a great reader; however, the notion of leading by example is hardly a popular one. Kovtun might be an exemplary service officer, but that makes him no less a cretin.
“So go ahead,” Nikolai says. “Speak.”
“Forget it. Fuck off back to Tolstoy.”
Nikolai shrugs and returns to his book. He is breaking no rule. Chatter is quiet tonight; it is Christmas Eve, the snow is blanketing Petersburg, and the consulate across the street is deserted but for a few lonely drudges and the deputy public affairs officer who, by the sound of it, is giving his assistant an early Christmas present. Kovtun, naturally, is listening with drooling, avid attention, slurping down a bottle of Dutch beer, and demolishing the plate of zakuski that had been intended for both of them.
“Look at this, Luzhin.” Kovtun is grinning and brandishing a pornographic magazine. There is a pneumatic blonde on the cover with her legs spread wide apart, caressing herself with red talon-like fingernails. One slip and she might circumcise herself, or pop one of the balloons implanted in her chest. “Ever had your hands on a set of tits like that?”
Not for the first time, Nikolai wishes that he and Kovtun had been given separate offices. The Petersburg section chief had been so proud of the English partners’ desk that keeps them chained together. “No.” He examines the picture impassively. “Have you?”
“What, you don’t like her? You queer or something?” Kovtun belches and stands, still holding the magazine. “I’m going for a piss. Feed the fire, won’t you? It’s getting cold in here.”
Nikolai crouches before the porcelain stove. It looks like a painted wedding cake, all pastel flowers and ribbons and gilded scrollwork. There is central heating, installed years ago, but the directorate prefers not to waste its money on heat. Its agents should be fit and vigorous, and accustomed to bracing air. This does not stop Nikolai and Kovtun from keeping the stove fired; it is perhaps the one thing they agree upon. He pushes a neatly trimmed log inside and watches it flare to life. The resulting burst of warmth and fragrance is glorious.
This was a grand house once, the residence of one of the foreign ambassadors. Then it became the home of one highly placed Party member after another, and in 1991, the directorate took charge of it, transforming it into a field office. Its elegance has remained largely intact, however; Nikolai is no connoisseur, but it doesn’t take an expert to see beauty and quality in the gilt-paneled walls, the heavy crystal chandeliers, the aging, but still graceful furnishings. He is unaccustomed to luxury – it is years and leagues away from the state farm collective where he was brought up, and he appreciates it with a strange inner timidity, as though expecting it to be yanked away in punishment for some gross impertinence.
Across the street, the deputy public affairs officer has finished with his assistant, and has promised to visit her while his wife is cooking Christmas dinner for him and their two teenage sons. After church services, possibly. Once they have taken their departure, the chatter falls silent altogether, leaving Nikolai alone with the fluid harp glissandos of Tchaikovsky. It is nearly eleven o’clock; the consulate will be deserted until the morning of the twenty-sixth. Certain that Kovtun will be jerking off in the toilet for at least another twenty minutes, Nikolai pours a glass of tea from the samovar, dilutes it, and adds vodka. He parts the curtain and toasts the darkened consulate. “Merry Christmas.” Then he retreats to the green velvet sofa with his book. It is his third reading; each time he has concentrated on a different character. First Anna, then Levin, now Vronsky. Of the three, Vronsky is the true cipher: a pleasant, handsome young man with a dark and impenetrable core, endlessly patient in love and curiously blind to suffering. In his imagination, Nikolai endows him with the face and body of a man he knew years ago, a man of extraordinary masculine beauty and a heart that revealed nothing.
He sips at his tea, then sets it atop a silver coaster on the lacquered end table. His eyes feel heavy, but he persists in reading. Ten pages later, he is fast asleep.
*
He is awakened by a rough hand on his shoulder, and a loud, booming voice. “Are you that bored, Kolya?” He blinks into the face of a stout, red-faced man he does not know. The man has a full, curling mustache and extravagant sideburns, and his breath smells of brandy and cigars. “Wake up, for God’s sake, and join the party! There are any number of delightful creatures here pining to dance with you.” Without waiting for an answer, he hauls Nikolai up by one arm and propels him across the room.
Nikolai is speechless with astonishment. The house is packed with people in old-fashioned evening dress. He sees a profusion of tailcoats and white ties, bustled gowns of satin and velvet, jewels glittering upon every feminine neck and ear. A small orchestra plays a Strauss waltz in the central ballroom. Nikolai gazes at the polished parquet floor and wonders what has happened to the rows and rows of file cabinets that had been stored there.
A group of men in military dress hail him with casual nods and waves. Kovtun is among them, fiddling with the button of one white kid glove; he drops Nikolai a leering wink and taps his chest. Startled, Nikolai looks down. He too is clad in military dress. Not the Red Army uniform of his youth, but Imperial cavalry dress -- a cream tunic with gold braid and epaulettes, and fitted black trousers with a broad red stripe. His own medals are pinned to the tunic: the Order of Service to the Motherland, the Order of Glory, the Order of Honor, and the medal for Strengthening Combat Alliance.
The man escorting him across the room is talking jovially, waving his cigar in a most expressive fashion. Nikolai can scarcely comprehend a single word of it, all banal social chatter about people Nikolai does not know – clearly they are among the assemblage, though, since the man points at one or another as they march through salon after gilded salon, negotiating the laughing, chattering crowd. There must be five hundred or more in the house. The rooms are warm from the press of bodies and thousands of candles. The chandeliers are ablaze, dripping wax onto the heads and shoulders of the guests. Only by the most extraordinary effort does Nikolai prevent himself from gaping. His own passivity puzzles him. He must be dreaming – he has always dreamed vividly – but this time, everything feels too real: the heat of the room, the music, the tightness of the gloves he wears, the odor of the cigar his companion brandishes. Surreptitiously, Nikolai gives himself a vicious pinch on the thigh.
“You know Princess Ekaterina, of course.” The man bows to a pretty, if pallid, blonde girl in a pale-blue velvet dress. She nods and smiles, greeting him softly in French; Nikolai imitates the man’s bow, hoping the protocol is correct. “Undoubtedly the belle of the ball. Do excuse us, my dear.” The man draws Nikolai away to murmur in his ear. “Still pining over Vronsky, of course. Poor Kitty! But there is no competing with the allure of a lovely married woman, eh?”
Nikolai stops in his tracks beside a Christmas tree that reaches nearly to the high-flung ceiling. “Vronsky?”
“But naturally, my dear boy. Now that I think of it, poor Alyosha is pining as well. The lady in question is refusing to meet him alone, so it is said, but they are often seen together in this or that salon or musical afternoon. One hears that her husband is doing a splendid job of feigning ignorance. Some of your fellows have placed bets as to when the married lady will succumb. All terribly vulgar, of course, but I can’t help but sympathize with all of them. It can only end badly, that I prophesy.” The man looks around, puffing on his cigar. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Vronsky in over an hour. I’ll wager he’s hidden himself in the stables. Go and bring him back, there’s a good lad.”
Nikolai moves off obediently in the direction of the stables, nodding politely to the men and women who greet him. Now and then he sees a face that is vaguely familiar. Once he swears he sees the Director in a black military tunic, weighed down by medals and gold braid, his cold blue eyes assessing Nikolai calmly, but when he looks again, the man’s back is turned. Dreaming, Nikolai assures himself, and makes his way toward the stables.
A path has been cleared from the main house, but the snow is falling thick and fast; Nikolai can hardly see from one covered torch to another. He slides a little in his polished formal boots and steadies himself. The cold is staggering, a brutal change from the warmth of the house. He nods briefly at the stable boy (surely that’s not the young man who sometimes delivers their lunch from the restaurant on Rizhsky prospect?) and gives him a ruble. “Go into the house.”
“But Cook will throw me out.”
“Then don’t let her see you, eh?” Nikolai slaps the boy on the shoulder and pushes him gently toward the door. He inhales the welcoming scents of a brazier, warm hay, horses, and tack. And then he sees a lone figure leaning against one of the stalls.
His breath catches in his throat. If he moves closer, will the dream dissolve? Will he awaken to find Kovtun grinning at him, waving his smutty American magazine in his face? To come so far, through all that glittering bewilderment, only to have it disappear…. “Alyosha,” he says softly.
The figure moves, startled. “Kolyushenka. Is that you?” Stepping into the light, Vronsky reveals himself completely – dashing in his dress uniform, achingly familiar, beautiful. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to find you.” The words pour unbidden from Nikolai’s throat, though he would not retract a single one. “Why are you hiding out here?”
Vronsky smiles sadly and shakes his head. “Another ball, exactly like all the balls that have preceded it, and all the balls to follow. All that backstabbing, all that hypocrisy. I can’t bear it another moment. I don’t see how you can, either.”
Nikolai moves closer. The dream has not yet dissolved. “I came to see you.”
“Kolyushenka...” Vronsky puts a hand to his brow. “Please. Please understand.” He reaches out and touches Nikolai gently on the cheek with one white-gloved hand. “Why do you force me to say things that will hurt you?”
A stabbing pain pierces Nikolai’s middle. It is as familiar as the face before him: the knowledge that some people are born to be paired, and others are born to be alone, and his fate is the latter. It has always been so; it will always be so. The knowledge has hardened him, and it is only now that he realizes that he is Vronsky’s opposite; his impenetrability is but surface armor.
“Do you remember London? The stables there?” Nikolai rests a hand over Vronsky’s heart. “Once more, for old times’ sake.” He grasps Vronsky’s chin, at first gently, then hard enough to prevent any struggle. “Once more, Alyosha,” he repeats, then draws him into a kiss.
Vronsky moans low in his throat, half protest, half acquiescence. His arms encircle Nikolai, his hands unerringly sliding down to his backside and pressing them close together. They are both hard already. Vronsky pushes Nikolai against the stall and grinds closer still, biting and suckling at Nikolai’s neck. Fumbling, he unhooks the stall latch and urges Nikolai inside, then disappears. He returns with a double armful of sable – lap robes and blankets – and throws them on the soft bed of hay.
Quickly they strip out of their pristine uniforms, shivering with cold. The horses, accustomed to noisy bellowing, ignore their whispers and laughter as they burrow between the furs, caressing each other to warmth again. Nikolai fastens on the strong, smooth column of Vronsky’s throat and moves upward to trace the outline of one ear. His hand seeks out Vronsky’s sex, rigid once more, and he wraps his fingers round it to pull gently, rhythmically, until Vronsky is thrusting forward, groaning loudly. Nikolai pushes a finger into his mouth to quiet him, and stiffens as he feels long fingers stroking him closer to climax, and long legs tangling round his.
Then Vronsky is on his belly, waiting, begging in soft incoherent words. Nikolai can only hear Please, Kolyushenka, please, and he moves swiftly now, roughly, slicking himself with spit, shoving Vronsky’s legs apart, and thrusting deep inside, plundering, his hand brutal around Vronsky’s sex. Their sweating bodies slap against one another; their mingled groans fill the space around and between them. Nikolai pushes as far as he can, burying himself, and he climaxes with a shudder, tightening his hand on Vronsky, who spills and bites his arm to keep from crying aloud. They fall to the furs, breathing hard.
Vronsky gathers Nikolai close, hiding his face against the nape of Nikolai’s neck. “Kolyushenka,” he whispers. “Why, for God’s sake?”
Nikolai has never confessed loneliness to a living soul; not even now, in the throes of this folly and confusion, can he do so. He merely responds in a murmur, “Don’t leave yet, Alyosha.”
“I must. Don’t forget me.” Vronsky is still there, yet strangely insubstantial in his arms.
“Alyosha, wait –“
*
“Luzhin!” Kovtun’s voice is loud, booming. “Wake up, stupid!”
Nikolai starts up from the couch, spilling the book from his chest. He grabs the hand that had been shaking his shoulder and gives it a short but extremely harsh and effective twist. Kovtun yelps and backs away, holding the injured hand.
“Christ! I try to do you a favor and you break my fucking hand!”
“I didn’t break it. Don’t ever wake me like that again.”
Kovtun glares. “No? I suppose I should just let you sleep on the job, is that it?”
“Why not? You do it all the time.” Nikolai rises from the sofa and leaves the room.
“Where the fuck are you going?”
Nikolai ignores him and moves slowly through the cold, dark, and deserted rooms. He goes into the bathroom, cleans himself up, and washes his hands. He looks into the mirror, half hoping to see a ghost, to hear music and distant laughter. The mirror reflects only himself, and empty tile.
He walks through the house and onto the back veranda, staring out at the ruined stables. The snow is falling thickly. He can scarcely see. Something stings his eye; he blinks it away. Only a snowflake, straying from its chill winter waltz.
End.
Author: Alex
Fandom: Crossover – Eastern Promises/Anna Karenina
Pairing: Nikolai Luzhin/Alexei Vronsky
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 2701.
Archive: Rugbytackling.
Disclaimer: Not mine. No harm intended [though I'm sure Tolstoy would roll in his grave].
Feedback: Is treasured.
Thanks: to
kimberlite, for support, friendship, inspiration, and beta. Additional thanks to temve for her assistance re. consular operations.Author's Note: A whimsical crossover to be sure, but bear with me. :)
Additional Note: Some allusions to my story Winter Chrysalides, but reading that is not necessary to understand this.
Summary: Christmas Eve in St. Petersburg.
A faint hiss of tape precedes the sweetly frantic woodwinds of Valse de flocons de neige. As Nikolai settles back with his book, his partner, Vasily Kovtun, glares at him in disgust. “Fuck’s sake, Luzhin, do you have to keep playing that crap?”
Nikolai turns a page, not bothering to respond. Anna Karenina has at last succumbed to Vronsky’s charms and kneels at his feet, wracked by remorse. Vronsky kneels with her, embracing her, uncomprehending and unable to cope with her misery.
“You could at least listen when I speak.”
With a soft sigh of infinite patience, Nikolai rests the book on his lap and gazes at Kovtun. He knows what Kovtun and others in the Petersburg office think of him. They dislike him, distrust his watchful quietude. For a nest of spies, they can be remarkably indiscreet at times. He feels the hostility of their gazes, hears the occasional whisper. Keep an eye on Luzhin, they murmur to one another. Mark my words, one way or another he’ll wind up stabbing you in the back. Can’t trust anyone with their nose always buried in a book. The service, in any incarnation, has never encouraged intellectualism in favor of action. Their current director, it’s said, is a great reader; however, the notion of leading by example is hardly a popular one. Kovtun might be an exemplary service officer, but that makes him no less a cretin.
“So go ahead,” Nikolai says. “Speak.”
“Forget it. Fuck off back to Tolstoy.”
Nikolai shrugs and returns to his book. He is breaking no rule. Chatter is quiet tonight; it is Christmas Eve, the snow is blanketing Petersburg, and the consulate across the street is deserted but for a few lonely drudges and the deputy public affairs officer who, by the sound of it, is giving his assistant an early Christmas present. Kovtun, naturally, is listening with drooling, avid attention, slurping down a bottle of Dutch beer, and demolishing the plate of zakuski that had been intended for both of them.
“Look at this, Luzhin.” Kovtun is grinning and brandishing a pornographic magazine. There is a pneumatic blonde on the cover with her legs spread wide apart, caressing herself with red talon-like fingernails. One slip and she might circumcise herself, or pop one of the balloons implanted in her chest. “Ever had your hands on a set of tits like that?”
Not for the first time, Nikolai wishes that he and Kovtun had been given separate offices. The Petersburg section chief had been so proud of the English partners’ desk that keeps them chained together. “No.” He examines the picture impassively. “Have you?”
“What, you don’t like her? You queer or something?” Kovtun belches and stands, still holding the magazine. “I’m going for a piss. Feed the fire, won’t you? It’s getting cold in here.”
Nikolai crouches before the porcelain stove. It looks like a painted wedding cake, all pastel flowers and ribbons and gilded scrollwork. There is central heating, installed years ago, but the directorate prefers not to waste its money on heat. Its agents should be fit and vigorous, and accustomed to bracing air. This does not stop Nikolai and Kovtun from keeping the stove fired; it is perhaps the one thing they agree upon. He pushes a neatly trimmed log inside and watches it flare to life. The resulting burst of warmth and fragrance is glorious.
This was a grand house once, the residence of one of the foreign ambassadors. Then it became the home of one highly placed Party member after another, and in 1991, the directorate took charge of it, transforming it into a field office. Its elegance has remained largely intact, however; Nikolai is no connoisseur, but it doesn’t take an expert to see beauty and quality in the gilt-paneled walls, the heavy crystal chandeliers, the aging, but still graceful furnishings. He is unaccustomed to luxury – it is years and leagues away from the state farm collective where he was brought up, and he appreciates it with a strange inner timidity, as though expecting it to be yanked away in punishment for some gross impertinence.
Across the street, the deputy public affairs officer has finished with his assistant, and has promised to visit her while his wife is cooking Christmas dinner for him and their two teenage sons. After church services, possibly. Once they have taken their departure, the chatter falls silent altogether, leaving Nikolai alone with the fluid harp glissandos of Tchaikovsky. It is nearly eleven o’clock; the consulate will be deserted until the morning of the twenty-sixth. Certain that Kovtun will be jerking off in the toilet for at least another twenty minutes, Nikolai pours a glass of tea from the samovar, dilutes it, and adds vodka. He parts the curtain and toasts the darkened consulate. “Merry Christmas.” Then he retreats to the green velvet sofa with his book. It is his third reading; each time he has concentrated on a different character. First Anna, then Levin, now Vronsky. Of the three, Vronsky is the true cipher: a pleasant, handsome young man with a dark and impenetrable core, endlessly patient in love and curiously blind to suffering. In his imagination, Nikolai endows him with the face and body of a man he knew years ago, a man of extraordinary masculine beauty and a heart that revealed nothing.
He sips at his tea, then sets it atop a silver coaster on the lacquered end table. His eyes feel heavy, but he persists in reading. Ten pages later, he is fast asleep.
*
He is awakened by a rough hand on his shoulder, and a loud, booming voice. “Are you that bored, Kolya?” He blinks into the face of a stout, red-faced man he does not know. The man has a full, curling mustache and extravagant sideburns, and his breath smells of brandy and cigars. “Wake up, for God’s sake, and join the party! There are any number of delightful creatures here pining to dance with you.” Without waiting for an answer, he hauls Nikolai up by one arm and propels him across the room.
Nikolai is speechless with astonishment. The house is packed with people in old-fashioned evening dress. He sees a profusion of tailcoats and white ties, bustled gowns of satin and velvet, jewels glittering upon every feminine neck and ear. A small orchestra plays a Strauss waltz in the central ballroom. Nikolai gazes at the polished parquet floor and wonders what has happened to the rows and rows of file cabinets that had been stored there.
A group of men in military dress hail him with casual nods and waves. Kovtun is among them, fiddling with the button of one white kid glove; he drops Nikolai a leering wink and taps his chest. Startled, Nikolai looks down. He too is clad in military dress. Not the Red Army uniform of his youth, but Imperial cavalry dress -- a cream tunic with gold braid and epaulettes, and fitted black trousers with a broad red stripe. His own medals are pinned to the tunic: the Order of Service to the Motherland, the Order of Glory, the Order of Honor, and the medal for Strengthening Combat Alliance.
The man escorting him across the room is talking jovially, waving his cigar in a most expressive fashion. Nikolai can scarcely comprehend a single word of it, all banal social chatter about people Nikolai does not know – clearly they are among the assemblage, though, since the man points at one or another as they march through salon after gilded salon, negotiating the laughing, chattering crowd. There must be five hundred or more in the house. The rooms are warm from the press of bodies and thousands of candles. The chandeliers are ablaze, dripping wax onto the heads and shoulders of the guests. Only by the most extraordinary effort does Nikolai prevent himself from gaping. His own passivity puzzles him. He must be dreaming – he has always dreamed vividly – but this time, everything feels too real: the heat of the room, the music, the tightness of the gloves he wears, the odor of the cigar his companion brandishes. Surreptitiously, Nikolai gives himself a vicious pinch on the thigh.
“You know Princess Ekaterina, of course.” The man bows to a pretty, if pallid, blonde girl in a pale-blue velvet dress. She nods and smiles, greeting him softly in French; Nikolai imitates the man’s bow, hoping the protocol is correct. “Undoubtedly the belle of the ball. Do excuse us, my dear.” The man draws Nikolai away to murmur in his ear. “Still pining over Vronsky, of course. Poor Kitty! But there is no competing with the allure of a lovely married woman, eh?”
Nikolai stops in his tracks beside a Christmas tree that reaches nearly to the high-flung ceiling. “Vronsky?”
“But naturally, my dear boy. Now that I think of it, poor Alyosha is pining as well. The lady in question is refusing to meet him alone, so it is said, but they are often seen together in this or that salon or musical afternoon. One hears that her husband is doing a splendid job of feigning ignorance. Some of your fellows have placed bets as to when the married lady will succumb. All terribly vulgar, of course, but I can’t help but sympathize with all of them. It can only end badly, that I prophesy.” The man looks around, puffing on his cigar. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Vronsky in over an hour. I’ll wager he’s hidden himself in the stables. Go and bring him back, there’s a good lad.”
Nikolai moves off obediently in the direction of the stables, nodding politely to the men and women who greet him. Now and then he sees a face that is vaguely familiar. Once he swears he sees the Director in a black military tunic, weighed down by medals and gold braid, his cold blue eyes assessing Nikolai calmly, but when he looks again, the man’s back is turned. Dreaming, Nikolai assures himself, and makes his way toward the stables.
A path has been cleared from the main house, but the snow is falling thick and fast; Nikolai can hardly see from one covered torch to another. He slides a little in his polished formal boots and steadies himself. The cold is staggering, a brutal change from the warmth of the house. He nods briefly at the stable boy (surely that’s not the young man who sometimes delivers their lunch from the restaurant on Rizhsky prospect?) and gives him a ruble. “Go into the house.”
“But Cook will throw me out.”
“Then don’t let her see you, eh?” Nikolai slaps the boy on the shoulder and pushes him gently toward the door. He inhales the welcoming scents of a brazier, warm hay, horses, and tack. And then he sees a lone figure leaning against one of the stalls.
His breath catches in his throat. If he moves closer, will the dream dissolve? Will he awaken to find Kovtun grinning at him, waving his smutty American magazine in his face? To come so far, through all that glittering bewilderment, only to have it disappear…. “Alyosha,” he says softly.
The figure moves, startled. “Kolyushenka. Is that you?” Stepping into the light, Vronsky reveals himself completely – dashing in his dress uniform, achingly familiar, beautiful. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to find you.” The words pour unbidden from Nikolai’s throat, though he would not retract a single one. “Why are you hiding out here?”
Vronsky smiles sadly and shakes his head. “Another ball, exactly like all the balls that have preceded it, and all the balls to follow. All that backstabbing, all that hypocrisy. I can’t bear it another moment. I don’t see how you can, either.”
Nikolai moves closer. The dream has not yet dissolved. “I came to see you.”
“Kolyushenka...” Vronsky puts a hand to his brow. “Please. Please understand.” He reaches out and touches Nikolai gently on the cheek with one white-gloved hand. “Why do you force me to say things that will hurt you?”
A stabbing pain pierces Nikolai’s middle. It is as familiar as the face before him: the knowledge that some people are born to be paired, and others are born to be alone, and his fate is the latter. It has always been so; it will always be so. The knowledge has hardened him, and it is only now that he realizes that he is Vronsky’s opposite; his impenetrability is but surface armor.
“Do you remember London? The stables there?” Nikolai rests a hand over Vronsky’s heart. “Once more, for old times’ sake.” He grasps Vronsky’s chin, at first gently, then hard enough to prevent any struggle. “Once more, Alyosha,” he repeats, then draws him into a kiss.
Vronsky moans low in his throat, half protest, half acquiescence. His arms encircle Nikolai, his hands unerringly sliding down to his backside and pressing them close together. They are both hard already. Vronsky pushes Nikolai against the stall and grinds closer still, biting and suckling at Nikolai’s neck. Fumbling, he unhooks the stall latch and urges Nikolai inside, then disappears. He returns with a double armful of sable – lap robes and blankets – and throws them on the soft bed of hay.
Quickly they strip out of their pristine uniforms, shivering with cold. The horses, accustomed to noisy bellowing, ignore their whispers and laughter as they burrow between the furs, caressing each other to warmth again. Nikolai fastens on the strong, smooth column of Vronsky’s throat and moves upward to trace the outline of one ear. His hand seeks out Vronsky’s sex, rigid once more, and he wraps his fingers round it to pull gently, rhythmically, until Vronsky is thrusting forward, groaning loudly. Nikolai pushes a finger into his mouth to quiet him, and stiffens as he feels long fingers stroking him closer to climax, and long legs tangling round his.
Then Vronsky is on his belly, waiting, begging in soft incoherent words. Nikolai can only hear Please, Kolyushenka, please, and he moves swiftly now, roughly, slicking himself with spit, shoving Vronsky’s legs apart, and thrusting deep inside, plundering, his hand brutal around Vronsky’s sex. Their sweating bodies slap against one another; their mingled groans fill the space around and between them. Nikolai pushes as far as he can, burying himself, and he climaxes with a shudder, tightening his hand on Vronsky, who spills and bites his arm to keep from crying aloud. They fall to the furs, breathing hard.
Vronsky gathers Nikolai close, hiding his face against the nape of Nikolai’s neck. “Kolyushenka,” he whispers. “Why, for God’s sake?”
Nikolai has never confessed loneliness to a living soul; not even now, in the throes of this folly and confusion, can he do so. He merely responds in a murmur, “Don’t leave yet, Alyosha.”
“I must. Don’t forget me.” Vronsky is still there, yet strangely insubstantial in his arms.
“Alyosha, wait –“
*
“Luzhin!” Kovtun’s voice is loud, booming. “Wake up, stupid!”
Nikolai starts up from the couch, spilling the book from his chest. He grabs the hand that had been shaking his shoulder and gives it a short but extremely harsh and effective twist. Kovtun yelps and backs away, holding the injured hand.
“Christ! I try to do you a favor and you break my fucking hand!”
“I didn’t break it. Don’t ever wake me like that again.”
Kovtun glares. “No? I suppose I should just let you sleep on the job, is that it?”
“Why not? You do it all the time.” Nikolai rises from the sofa and leaves the room.
“Where the fuck are you going?”
Nikolai ignores him and moves slowly through the cold, dark, and deserted rooms. He goes into the bathroom, cleans himself up, and washes his hands. He looks into the mirror, half hoping to see a ghost, to hear music and distant laughter. The mirror reflects only himself, and empty tile.
He walks through the house and onto the back veranda, staring out at the ruined stables. The snow is falling thickly. He can scarcely see. Something stings his eye; he blinks it away. Only a snowflake, straying from its chill winter waltz.
End.
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Date: 2009-01-04 08:47 am (UTC)The first time I read the book I was extremely annoyed with the character and I think it was because of the latter quality I described. Of course, I was in high school too. Bean played him very sympathetically and made me examine Vronsky in a different way.
Reading by character is a nice touch.
Thank you so much - and I'm glad you liked the ending line. I appreciate you taking the time to leave such thoughtful feedback. Many thanks. :)