Author's Note: Hello everyone, it is my first time uploading to FF! (not the first time writing fanfiction or publishing it, of course.) Please enjoy this Assassin!RusLat. It is rated T for somewhat graphic violence, blood, murder, addiction, and self-harm. There is death but not that of any Hetalia characters. The cover art is from . ?p=52305. Of course, I don't own Hetalia. Please enjoy and leave lots of reviews!
Raivis had walked in on a man and his ghosts. Ivan looked up, and he could see all the way around his electric lilac irises. "No," Ivan mouthed, eyes penetrating. He slowly stood up and shut the curtains so the moonlight no longer reflected off the blood on the floor. Yet he could still faintly see it, dark and horrible, the names of those whose souls had surrendered to him. He turned on his heel and ran. Nightshirt billowing behind him, Raivis dashed back to his dormitory and locked the door. As he clambered into his bed, the image of his old mentor, blood streaming down his face and hands was still etched into his mind. And the names written on the hardwood floor. Malachy Parsons, he was with him when a bullet was put into that one's chest; Price Stafford, he couldn't forget the smile on Ivan's face upon reading the name of that assignment. Unknown, well, there had been dozens of them. Faces lost to the desire for gold.
He felt ashamed for not guessing sooner. Ivan's jobs were always clean and simple, yet his face was badly scarred all over. How many nights had he slit his own skin by the light of the moon? How many tears had fallen for those he knew nothing of? Yet at the same time Raivis found himself justified, his boss was the last individual one would ever think might end up overflowing with the acidic liquid of guilty grief. Every assassin, working privately or part of their unit, knew his name; Ivan Braginsky, Ivan the Bloodthirsty, Ivan the Shadow, his aliases were infinite. He was the ideal assassin: tall, broad-shouldered, muscular, and menacing. During his training, Raivis witnessed first-hand his striking like a cobra, not a drop of blood on his hands, and absconding silently into the gloom, knives and guns alike tucked safely away.
Etched into his mind was the sight of the slowly drying blood coating his fingers, seeming to compensate for how swift and without emotion he kept his hands clean during killings. Raivis had long ago closed his own heart, prohibited the incomplete lives of his victims from penetrating the iron cage of his thoughts. They were naught but fragments of the past now, drifting along with the wind so far as he was concerned. No people hid behind the mask of death. Yet this was not to say that he did not know the stabbing pain of overwhelming guilt, that he had never broken down crying and trembling in the middle of streets upon considering the lives he had ended. However, that was years ago, back when he was nothing but a foolish, emotional young boy. Ivan had scolded him upon such occasions, hissing curses into his ear as he shook with sobs, lying flat on the cobblestones. Twice he had gone so far as to kick him hard in the ribs, yet both times he didn't seem to understand why the winded Raivis could not talk for a minute, only to casually pick him up and carry him back to the dormitories.
This hard-hearted man had finally cracked.
Look straight forward. Walk directly to the washroom, don't make conversation or meander in the slightest. Carry your towels in a way that covers your face partially if you spot him.
"Raivis!" came Ivan's cheerful voice, "I want to talk to you!"
Too late.
"Is it about a job?" he deadpanned as his heart lurched. He did not stop walking.
"No, it's about last night." Somebody snorted and shuffled away. Eyes directed towards the glowing washroom door, he didn't see who, but could sense a stifled grin of mirth distorting their lips.
"What?" he said. Ivan's strong hands clamped down on his shoulders, causing him to nearly topple over. He looked up to see violet eyes sparkling even in the dim light of the corridor.
"About last night," he said, "that never happened. You saw nothing. Everything is as it appears to be. I'm just a cheerful guy whose job is to kill people!"
An uncomfortable silence ensued. "Come on, I made a joke, Raivis!" he said, shaking him roughly, "why is nobody laughing?" Several people had stopped walking to stare.
"That's not funny, Ivan," he replied, trying to squirm loose of his grip.
"Fine, then!" he said, pouting. He let go of him with a shove and stormed away. Gently massaging his now aching shoulders, Raivis continued walking. Dejected, he elbowed his way through the throng of people all heading their own separate directions, and into the men's washroom. It was steamy and well-lit inside, lined with wooden stalls for bathtubs. He spotted one with its door ajar when a boy by the name of Peter, who was some unfortunate person's apprentice, came rushing in.
"So," he said, sidling up to him, "what'd ya see that Ivan doesn't want you blabbing about?"
Go away, Peter. "Nothing," he lied, "I honestly had no idea what that was all about. He must have had a fever dream or something."
"Uh-huh," he said sarcastically, "you can tell me, I won't tell anyone, ya know."
"If he were seriously trying to tell me something, would he do it in front of all those people? No!" he snapped, "Now could I please go take a bath?"
It was a good thing Peter didn't know Ivan very well, because it was, in fact, just like him to blurt out a bit of his true feelings in front of a crowd of onlookers. That man knew no boundaries.
He shoved the folder in his satchel and crept up the red velvet carpeted staircase, keeping to edges and corners to reduce creaking. Raivis' mark had long, black hair that was tied in a bun in the sketch. The darkness and the silence thrilled him, bringing adrenaline to his fingertips and a pleasant tingling to his heart. He reached the landing above the stairs where stood the bedroom door. It opened with the slightest creak when he turned the brass knob. The lady lay asleep on her bed, hair fanned out over her embroidered pillowcase. She was a mirror image of the drawing, face round and pale, gray circles around her heavy-lashed eyes, and thin yellow lips. Her glasses were folded on a mahogany nightstand beside her bed.
Delilah Randall. Twenty-seven years old. Widowed eleven months after marriage, has had one miscarriage following her husband's death. The poor thing needed to be put out of its misery, anyway. Raivis had a loaded pistol in his bag, but he thought he would spare the noise and mess of powder and give her a nice clean cut across the neck. Ivan would have done the same. Then he would wait until the blood slowed its flowing into the pillow to flip it over and bandage the cut to control the rest.
His fingers closed on the hilt of his dagger in its sheath. Drawing it out, it glinted silver in a moonbeam that shone through her stained-glass accented windows. An unwelcome fleck of dried blood had stood its ground through the blade's cleaning, a memento of its last victim. He brought it to her neck, the cold metal making contact with her skin. She shifted in her sleep. Something had made him stop. All at once his mind rushed to look for reasons not to kill her. A sappy-looking romance novel sitting in dusty repose on an elaborately carved bookshelf. He read such on a daily basis. The other assassins mocked him until he learned to keep them a secret. A wilting sunflower in a vase of murky water. In his free time as a child, Ivan had often taken him to buy sunflowers from a local farmer who had once hired an assassin from their company. An empty, out-of place liquor bottle broken on the well-lacquered hardwood floor. Things of that type he knew quite well.
Here lay a lonely woman trying in vain to make herself feel better. He could not hurt her, she reflected himself in every way! She had a life full of hardships, a personality, a face, unlike so many of his victims of the past. Yet this he knew, guiltily, to be untrue, the others were no different. They had families who loved them, yes, but they were more than such. How many hearts had he ground to a pulp with grief, how many people had Raivis broken to this point? Through his mind flashed the image of Ivan, his beloved boss, with blood running in rivulets down his face. How could he possibly kill this innocent woman when she was so much more than a sketch and a name? Nonsense, he thought to himself, I am a professional assassin. I'll just slit her throat and be done with it. I am not Ivan, nobody is expecting a perfect job. Just a dead woman, that's all. How ridiculous it was to let my emotions get the better of me.
Yet when Raivis raised the knife to Delilah's neck again, his hand trembled. He was a killer. His assignment was to slaughter this woman, and he must do so.
The dagger came down.
"Yes, sir," Raivis said, "she's dead." He drew out the blood-covered knife.
Manager Wang smiled. "Excellent." Out of a wire basket on his desk he drew a small stamp, with which he marked Randall's file "COMPLETE."
"Run along now, Galante. I've got two more assassins to check in with before an appointment with a customer."
This he did. As he shut the door and strode down the hallway, Raivis knew where he must go. Nobody answered when he knocked on Ivan's door, so he went inside and sat down on his bed. His old mentor's dormitory was for the most part bare, save for a stack of books on a rickety wooden chair, a rack of weapons of all sorts next to his wardrobe, several rolls of bloody gauze lying all over the floor, and a sunflower resting dolefully in a mason jar on the windowsill. He looked sharply away from the latter, blocking out any memories of Delilah's lavish bedroom.
Implanted in his mind was the idea that when Ivan came back, everything would be alright. Any fears would be washed away, all wrongdoings would be forgiven by he who shared his feelings of self-hate. They could be monsters together, and slowly change their ways. In the end, they could be free together, knowing that sins of the past would never repeat.
"Raivis!" His fantasy vanished. "What is it with you and coming into my room without permission?"
"Well, the first time, I was going to ask you a question," he replied matter-of-factly, "I couldn't sleep because I had forgotten a bit of your advice for making false blood, and-"
"Nevermind then, why are you here now?"
"I had another question."
Ivan sighed. "What is it?"
He chose his words carefully. "Does a depressed woman with nothing to do with her life deserve to die?" Avoiding eye contact, Raivis stared at the floor.
"It depends on how you look at it," he said, "whether you're feeling like a human or a killer."
"What would a killer say?"
"I think an assassin like us might say she deserved it to justify murdering her. They'd say there was nothing left to come from her life, and that given the choice, she'd rather die anyway." He sat down next to him and took off his boots.
"What about a human? Would normal people think it was good she was killed?"
"I am not one to speak," Ivan said, "as I don't think I qualify as a normal person anymore, but I assume they would say she didn't deserve it."
"Why?" Raivis asked, staring at a knot in the floorboard below his foot.
There was a pause. "Well, people would say that there was always some hope for her in the future, so long as she was alive. They would tell her that she could make it with help, but none would ever offer it. And, if she had enough willpower, she could manage to do it herself. She could, eventually, become happier and more successful." He folded his gloved hands in his lap. "Have you met my little sister, Natalya?" Raivis shook his head. "I don't suggest you do, she's quite the fearsome young lady. She is an assassin too. She's all about carpe diem and whatnot. She thinks her life is too short, and that she should make something of it. Yet instead of doing that, she keeps on taking lives. To answer your question, the world is too big to have concrete ideas of right and wrong. Your beliefs are up to you and you alone."
"Ivan," Raivis moaned, eyes welling up with tears, "what have we done? Who are we?"
"What do you mean?" he said.
"We kill for gold. We destroy for gold! We are monsters!" He bit his lip as the first tear escaped his eye.
He was shocked when Ivan put his arms around him. "It's alright," he said softly, "this is what we're told to do. It's not good to dwell on your worries too long, anyway."
"You're right," Raivis said, leaning into his embrace, "I'll just wait for now." The strong aroma of suede from Ivan's coat surrounded them.
"But please," he said, breaking away to hold him by the shoulders, "don't make the mistake I did. You look nice without scars."
Raivis woke to the feeling of warm sunlight on his cheeks, a splitting headache, and scratchy, unfamiliar blankets all around him. He heard the sound of slow, heavy breathing from below and blearily opened his eyes. He rolled onto his side and peered over the edge of his bed to see Ivan, fast asleep on the floor, dressed in his outfit from the day before. He gasped. Upon seeing the glint of a pistol's barrel on a rack above him, he knew he was in Ivan's dormitory. A soft pain came from his forearms. He had no idea how he had gotten here, no recollection of the night before. Rubbing his temple, he propped himself up on one elbow. Startled, he saw that both of his arms were wrapped in gauze, dots of blood having seeped through in places. It then hit him why Ivan's bedsheets were black and not white like his and all of the other assassins'. As quietly as possible, he peeled them off and crept out of bed and out the door. A few earlier risers passed him on the way to his dormitory.
Upon opening the door an unpleasant sight stood before him. Four large jugs of the liquor Raivis had been keeping in his wardrobe were lying empty on the ground along with a bloody silver knife. Fear of a strange and unknown variety shot through him at the sight of the names smeared on the ground, dark red splotches of self-loathing. This strange feeling coursing through his veins, with lightning speed he grabbed a washcloth and dashed to the washroom to run water over it. The first parts of him that must go were those that he had already took from his own body.
Later that morning, Raivis filled his breakfast plate with food, forcefully pushing all thoughts of that morning, Delilah, and the names written in blood to the back corner of his mind. "Thank you," he muttered, dropping a fistful of coins into the faceless cashier's hands. Ivan was not very hard to spot. He was six feet tall, had fair hair, and wore the same scarf nearly every day. Silently he laid his plate down next to his. "Hello, Ivan," he said quietly, "thank you for this." He gestured to his forearms.
"Raivis, I told you not to," he replied, voice a high chirp.
Their silence was filled by the clinking of ceramic dishes and the subdued chatter of the lunchroom customers. Yet in his laconism, the thoughts came drifting lazily back, taunting. The feeling of warm eyelids under his fingers as they were closed for their final time. The words "rest in peace" escaping smugly from his mouth. The feeling of a longer knife bumping against exposed vertebrae. Clenched fists or fidgeting hands relaxing all of a sudden. And then with the thought that death would happen to everyone, including him, he broke down into tears and trembling.
The world inside of his cupped hands was black and terrifying, but the world outside was even more so. His lungs seemed incapable of pumping air any longer. He deserved this death that would be so soon upon him, he deserved it! If Hell really was real, he could meet them all and apologize. But death was upon him and Raivis did not want to go, fear of the unknown taking control. Fear of the unknown, bane of mankind. He thought he would be the last one to succumb but here, as he shook violently, tears splashing into his potatoes, he could not take it anymore. The world was closing in on him and Death was coming, there was its hand firmly running down his back and its hideous arms which reeked of suede- Suede. Ivan was here. Death could not take Ivan! Ivan had to continue! Ivan, death, Ivan, death, Ivan, Ivan, Ivan! Ivan.
"Ivan…" It came out a shaky, rattling sob.
"Raivis." He was kissed on the cheek. "It's okay. You're okay," came a sweet whisper.
"Okay," he repeated, burying his face in the suede. He was too tired for rationality.