Some secrets made you feel trustworthy and reliable. Others were like receiving a loaded gun and an invitation to play Russian roulette. When Rock took up Boris' offer to go drinking with Hotel Moscow, he didn't really expect the other side of soldierly camaraderie.
"Our kapitan keeps no secrets from us," Boris said, pouring Rock another shot of searing vodka. "Petrov, on the other hand…"
"Otvaali, Borya," Petrov flipped his comrade off on cue. He leaned over to Rock with a wicked glint in his hazel eyes. "Hey, I'll tell you something Balalaika doesn't know," he said, winking. "Want to hear it?"
In a show of naivety, Rock nodded eagerly.
Boris groaned, grabbing the vodka bottle, as Petrov began, "It all happened last year when it was really fucking hot…"
They said the heat made people crazy. If you added four bored Russians on guard duty, it was a melting pot for disaster.
"Why," Petrov said around his cigarette, "doesn't kapitan get herself a man? She keeps complaining but she never finds nobody."
Menshov's head whipped around. "Shit," he said, "you have any idea who could walk by this minute?!"
Granted, being on security detail at headquarters put them in dangerous proximity to Balalaika for this sort of gossip, but Petrov wasn't fazed. "Seriously, I bet we could find someone for her," he insisted. "But it'd have to be a good guy, who won't have problems with her scars, maybe from a nice family and - what's so funny?"
Sakharov had ducked behind the arse of a marble lion, fake-coughing loudly. Kuric looked like he was trying to suck his entire mouth in to keep from laughing. Petrov glared at them.
"I'm not stupid, I have a shortlist -"
Menshov hushed him with a free hand. "The lift's coming," he said, standing up. The rest of them quickly fell in, tugging uniforms straight, pulling holsters to the right spot on their belts. Petrov even put out his cigarette. There was a ding from across the lobby, and the familiar march of kitten heels approached them.
"It's honestly an excuse, Boris, but with the payments behind schedule, we can't fault a smuggler for trying." Balalaika's voice carried over the steady pace of her footsteps. "We should make an example in this case… Evening, comrades," she said, stopping in front of them. They saluted crisply.
"Anything to report?" Balalaika asked. That calm, blue gaze threatened to see the recent past where they were debating her love life. Petrov tried not to gulp.
"No troubles here, kapitan," Menshov said. He took in their empty hands, no briefcases or files. "Will you be back this evening?" he asked.
Balalaika posed the same question in a glance to Boris, standing beside her. He nodded slightly.
"Yes," she said, tucking her hands into her greatcoat. Boris touched her shoulder and Balalaika nodded, reaching up to pat his hand.
"Anyway, carry on," she told them. The double doors had barely swung shut behind the two of them before everyone rounded on Petrov.
"How did you know?" Kuric demanded. "I never thought - how?"
Petrov was still reeling from the universe dumping the best fucking bachelor for Balalaika into his lap. He tried to sound smug rather than poleaxed. "Told you!" he said. "We, uh… we were bound to find someone for her!"
Sakharov was still staring after them. "Holy shit," he said. Menshov just sighed.
He had to move quickly before common sense kicked in and ruined everything. Petrov pointed after their leader and her second. "Let's make it happen," he said.
"Look, comrade, you don't have to agree, you just gotta stand watch," Petrov said, as he dangled feet first in the elevator shaft.
"Remind me how this plan of yours works again," Menshov said flatly.
Petrov pointed at the elevator box about ten metres below. "Simple; when kapitan and Boris get back, they'll take the lift straight to her office, but before they get there, we cut the power and trap them inside!"
Menshov looked unconvinced. "So?"
"So, when a man and a woman are alone like that, there's only one thing that can happen…
"They'll confess their love for each other and consummate their desire!" Petrov continued blithely, ignoring the shade of green clouding his comrade's face.
" 'Consummate their -' holy fuck, are you my grandmother?" Sakharov's voice rang scornfully in their earpieces. "This isn't a fucking soap opera - have you taken position on the box yet?"
Petrov tested his makeshift harness with a few tugs. "Yeah, yeah, almost there," he said, lowering himself slowly with the pulley.
One storey down, Menshov called clearly, "Petrov, if I have to listen to anyone have sex in the elevator, I am going to kill you."
Petrov looked up in alarm. "Wait, is that what 'consummate' means? Fuck!" he said, nearly missing his footing. He landed on the roof with a thump. Checking the wire was firmly in place, he connected it to a nifty radio. Without light, they'd have to rely on eavesdropping to know if Boris was finally able to make a move. He muted the speakers before setting it to broadcast to the four of them on a secure channel. Knowing Balalaika, her protocol for a busted lift probably included sweeping for enemy radio waves or something equally extreme.
"Petrov calling in, the wire is live, we are in position on the roof," he said.
"Kuric here, at the control box. Everything is good."
"We are live with Sakharov here on Channel Three, what a wonderful evening to everyone planning a romantic ambush for their superior officer -"
There was a loud burst of static as everyone spluttered into their mikes. "F-fuck," Menshov wheezed. "I'm on the top floor. Ready for the getaway once the boss… gets going."
Petrov dove off the channel before Menshov's bawling laughter echoed loudly in the shaft.
"You guys aren't taking this seriously," he muttered. Petrov inched around, trying to pick a position that wouldn't give him leg cramps as he stayed absolutely still on the roof. Honestly, if all went well, he'd be out in a couple of hours, with blackmail material on the stone-faced Boris. Petrov grinned. He would love to see that poker face crack sometime.
A chirp in his ear made him tune back in to their team frequency. "They're back," Sakharov said, reporting the view over the driveway. "They're heading straight in."
"To the lift?" Petrov tried to confirm.
"No, the stairs are more romantic - of course they're heading for the lift, idiot, what else?"
"Just checking," he said. Damn, his toes were already going a bit numb.
"Shut up, they're literally underneath you," Petrov heard, then Sakharov's voice was gone. He stayed very still as the elevator door chimed open, Balalaika's heels followed with Boris padding in after her.
Petrov prayed neither of them could hear his pounding heart as the doors closed. The lift sailed smoothly upward as Kuric counted softly.
"Three… Two… One…"
The halting jerk of the elevator produced two painfully loud thumps that made Petrov's heart skip a beat, but he relaxed as soon as Boris' swearing came in over the radio. Yeah, they were going to be just fine.
Going blind never got better with practice. "Shit!" Boris yelled. He tripped on something that cursed and pulled away.
"Boris!" Balalaika said sharply. "Slow down. We're not in danger."
He winced at her tone. "Sorry, kapitan. Are you alright?"
"I'm fine. Just don't kick me again." Her voice came from behind. She was still on the ground. Boris tried to turn towards her, patting along the floor when his palm landed on something that was clearly Balalaika's stockinged leg. He pulled back in a hurry,
"Sorry -"
She didn't let him apologise. "No, do that again," she said.
Boris hesitated, then obeyed. Her skin was warm under the sheer nylon, stretched thin over her knee. Her hand landed on his almost immediately.
"Found you," Balalaika said wryly. "Now I know where you are." She took his hand as they waited patiently for their vision to return.
Though they waited longer than the usual ten seconds, human eyes were useless in actual, pitch black. Boris figured the power outage had knocked out the electric lights outside as well, since there wasn't even a glow along the doors they could use. Balalaika made an annoyed noise when she realised there was no backup generator either.
He got up, pulling Balalaika after him. They continued to hold each other; it was the only way to avoid tripping over each other in the small space. He heard an odd clattering sound, like squirrels running across a tin roof. Balalaika had found the wall panel and was trying the buttons with increasing frustration.
"You're going to break your nails," he said, as she mashed the bell button like a teenager on arcade controls.
"I don't care," Balalaika said testily. "What kind of idiot designs an emergency button that doesn't work in an emergency?" Her hand tried to form a fist around his. Boris winced. Damn, she was strong.
"Can we call anyone?" he asked.
Balalaika stopped torturing the alarm button, and he heard a snap as she pulled out her phone. "I can't see the screen, but I'll try," she said. "Worst case, I get someone on speed dial."
Boris made a mental note to upgrade their phones to the backlit ones next time as Balalaika keyed for help. To his surprise, she swore.
"'No connection'… How? We're only ten metres from the door!" she said, voice filled with disbelief. She didn't hear the twitch of guilt from the roof of the elevator. The homemade jammer in Petrov's pocket was clearly doing its job.
She paced around, but the signal got no better. Boris could just make her out, a black-on-black shadow that halved in size as she took off her greatcoat, dumping it on the floor.
Balalaika pulled his sleeve firmly. "Sit," she instructed.
There was no arguing with that tone. Boris gingerly sat on the thick wool, trying not to catch any of the stiff officer tabs on his backside. It was still warm, like a rug that had been sunning all afternoon.
"Now what?" he said.
"We wait for rescue," Balalaika said dryly.
"You sure you don't want to try the ceiling?" Boris was aching for a cigarette, but lighting up in a metal box felt like a sure way to suffocate faster. Maybe if they could open a hatch…
"Sadly, no. There's nothing to open except for those plastic lights filled with a decade's worth of dead flies," Balalaika said. "In any case, we won't run out of air. The only real danger is dying of boredom." Her voice was sour.
The morning shift would only come in at six-thirty. No wonder she was mad.
"Wish you hadn't moved the night patrol across the street, huh?" Boris asked, elbowing her arm. They'd argued over this almost three months back. He'd been all for keeping people in their headquarters round the clock. But no, Balalaika had to play at some convoluted gambit where the night shift would guard the building from two neighbouring rooftops, so that if any attack occurred, Hotel Moscow wouldn't be split between rescue and assault when they stormed the building.
Strategy, she'd said. Overthinking it, he'd told her.
Balalaika groaned. "Dammit, Boris, you can't make this my fault!"
"Comrade Captain," he said formally. "I can and I will. Because we brought up the topic of your erratic office hours, and -"
"Sergeant," she growled.
Boris ignored her, "- and you said, 'Oh, it'll just be you and me, what could possibly go wrong?' Now we know."
There was a very sullen silence. She couldn't pull rank when he had the moral high ground.
"Fine, we're stuck here because of me," Balalaika said, "Are you happy now?"
"Nope," Boris breathed deeply. "We're still stuck here. What time is it?"
He had to hold the lighter up to her watch to check the time. "Only ten past midnight," Balalaika sighed. They scrunched her coat up a little more and added their jackets to the pile until it was just comfortable enough to sit on.
The minutes dragged by. "Man, this reminds me of Afghanistan," Boris said.
"Everything reminds you of Afghanistan," Balalaika said. "Getting old?"
"I mean the waiting," he said. "Our job was mostly waiting in one checkpoint or another, day and night. We all got really good at wasting time."
Balalaika was interested. "Oh, really? When was this?"
"You don't remember? This was before we got our actual VDV missions. A bunch of us were lumped with regular infantry, and did roadblock duty for a month." Boris said, recalling the miles and miles of empty dirt roads, a few sandbags and a lonely portable shelter. The surface of the moon showed more signs of life.
Every twelve hour shift crawled at a snail's pace. It was, he always maintained, the best place to go to watch toenails grow.
"No, thank goodness, I don't," Balalaika said. "I must have still been in the officer course. So what did you guys end up doing?"
"Smoking, drinking, gambling," Boris ticked them off his fingers like a memory mnemonic.
"We can't do those here," she said, sounding disappointed.
"There was also a lot of bad singing," he offered.
Balalaika snorted. "Before or after the bad alcohol?"
"Both."
That made her laugh. They wore the nostalgia like an old blanket, warm and worn with time. Balalaika stretched out her legs and yawned, leaning against his side, the top of her ponytail brushing his ear.
"I'm taking a nap, just dump me on the ground if I get too heavy," she said sleepily. Balalaika buried her head in the crook of his neck and softened against him, breathing deeply in moments.
Boris gingerly pulled long fine strands away from his face. Balalaika's hair held as looked like a thundercloud and held just as much static electricity. At least she was considerate enough not to put all her weight on him, else his shoulder would already be numb.
She was warm on his shoulder. Well, this wasn't completely uncomfortable… Boris yawned in echo, and settled down to drowse the time away.
Petrov couldn't believe it. They were squandering away the perfect opportunity! He checked his watch; two and a half hours, completely wasted because both of them had nodded off like old women in rocking chairs. Damn it! Was he going to need divine intervention for his comrades to see the light?!
"What the fuck are they waiting for?" he hissed. The sounds of someone getting up overtook his words. Boris coughed below him, grumbling incoherently.
There was a rush of air that was unmistakably a yawn over his earpiece. Menshov sighed. "Perhaps they don't have the energy. Since it's three in the morning."
"Now, that shouldn't get in the way of love!" Sakharov's cheery voice grated like sandpaper. "I'm sure the Sergeant is dying to confess, but maybe Sleeping Beauty won't wake up with anything short of a kiss -"
"I think she'll knock him into next week," Kuric said. "Maybe we should have done this in the day -"
Petrov cupped his microphone to his mouth as someone stretched awake below him. "Shut up! I think she's awake!"
Balalaika stretched. "Boris, what's wrong?" she asked cloudily. She couldn't miss his impatient pacing, the way he banged two steps forward and back continuously.
"It's been three hours," Boris said, failing to hold his frustration. "Kapitan, how do you do it? You're not even worried."
Balalaika laughed softly. "Worried? Why should I be?" she said. "There's no need to be worried when you've got faith in your comrades. I'm sure our men will find us soon, and everything will be all right."
Her gentle tone seemed to calm Boris down, but for the four eavesdroppers in the walls, it did the exact opposite.
"Wow," Kuric said, breaking the silence. "I feel pretty fucking bad after hearing that."
"Yeah, since we put them there," Menshov added.
Petrov didn't even wait for a consensus, banging on the elevator roof. "Hello? Anyone inside?" he called.
"You fucking liar," Menshov said darkly.
"Petrov!" Balalaika said, relieved. "I told you they were on their way, Boris," she said. "Can you get us out?" she called.
Petrov pretended to think. "I, uh, Kuric should be fixing all the circuit breakers now, hang on…" There was some frantic noises over the radio, but the building jumped back into illumination on cue. The elevator shuddered to the next floor and spat out two very relieved people. Menshov hoisted Petrov out and they hastily stowed all their gear in a nearby cabinet before rushing down to meet their captain.
Boris somehow still had the energy to talk, pointing angrily at the 'broken' lift when they arrived. Balalaika stood tiredly between everyone, her jacket hanging open. Someone had taken her heavy coat at least. Her hair was lank and tangled, the shadows under her eyes as dark as the smudged eyeliner, the exact look you'd expect from someone coming off a twenty-hour day. Petrov squished down latent feelings of guilt.
"Our heroes," she said warmly. He and Menshov greeted her informally, kissing her cheek in turn.
"We were starting to give up hope," she said. "How did you manage to find us? Our cell phones weren't working."
Petrov opened his mouth to confess when Sakharov elbowed him, then fibbed his way in smoothly. "We were hanging with the night shift when we realised the power had gone out," he said. "Luckily, Petrov remembered you guys might have come back, and we came down to check. Lucky guess, huh?" Sakharov casually caught him in a friendly-but-firm headlock. Petrov made a choking noise.
"Very good guess, indeed," she agreed.
Menshov interrupted before she could notice Petrov turning blue. "I'll drive you guys back to the hotel, kapitan," Menshov said. His look to Sakharov said, Don't let Petrov do anything stupid. He ushered Boris and Balalaika to one of the spare sedans, pulling onto the empty road within moments.
Sakharov released his death grip as soon as they were out of sight, letting Petrov wheeze on the ground. "I wasn't really going to tell them what happened!" Petrov said, rubbing his throat.
"Fuck no," Sakharov said empathically. He looked around the three of them. "If she works it out, it was just a live test of their reactions in an adverse situation, got it?"
"…And that's the story of how we nearly got killed by Boris," Petrov concluded. "We were scared shitless about Balalaika finding out we forgot he could actually piece things together too."
Boris snorted. "It's because I know you men. You're all idiots when it comes to women."
Rock's shot glass was frozen halfway to his mouth since the start of the tale. "She still doesn't know you were behind it?" he said.
"Of course she knows!" Petrov said cheerfully. "But she doesn't know why. And that's something you better not bring up if you guys bang later -"
His sentence was cuffed short by Boris' fist and a growl of "Don't be vulgar!" Rock downed the pure vodka to kill the panic in his stomach.
Russian camaraderie really was something else.