Sympathy for the Devil

It was 3:02 PM when the ringing phone woke Ivan Raidenovitch Raikov from his nap. He almost didn't answer it, but when he realized that it might be his darling calling to tell him the good news. Ivan hopped out of bed (which was very large, and felt much emptier than it usually was because it wasn't being shared) and picked up the phone.

"Hello!" he singsonged, leaning against the wall and twirling the cord around his finger like a gossipy teenager (which he still kind of was). He was taken aback when the voice on the other end was not at all his darling's.

"Major Raikov, there's been an… accident. The Colonel isn't dead, but he won't wake up. We're taking him to a hospital now, and we thought you would want to know so you can come here." The voice of a soldier muttered, almost pitying. Raikov felt a lump rise in his throat and bit his lip. He paused a moment before responding, letting the information sink in. He was almost sure the soldier was expecting some kind of cruel, snarky response, but Raikov couldn't bring himself to think of one at the moment.

"O-okay…" he almost whispered. His voice sounded much smaller than it usually did, and it was a tone he usually reserved for quiet moments of alone time with his darling Volgin. The man on the other end hung up, and Raikov sank down against the wall, sitting on the floor with his knees pulled up to his chin. He pressed his face into them, wishing desperately that this were some kind of nightmare. He took a shaky breath and bit his arm hard enough to break the skin and make it bleed. Definitely not a dream. Raikov stood up shakily and pulled on his coat and boots, trudging out into the cold air of the Russian countryside. He let the cold wind whip around him, sending snowflakes through his pale blonde hair and making him remember the days of his childhood where he and his brothers would play in the snow together. Those were the days when his parents were still alive, and Volgin had been a close friend of theirs, occasionally babysitting Ivan and his two older brothers. Raikov snapped out of his thoughts as a particularly large gust of wind blew him back a few steps. He had to get to his darling, and fast.

It was times like this when Raikov was grateful for his and Volgin's considerable wealth. He sat in the back of a plane, looking out over the grey skies and small houses as they flew over them. He bit at his thumbnail, gradually escalating to sucking his thumb. It was a habit he had, and Volgin had been trying to help him stop, but Raikov figured a little self-indulgence couldn't hurt at a time like this. They landed in a relatively short amount of time, and a group of soldiers was there to escort Raikov to the car that would take him to the hospital.

The car was practically a limousine, and almost as soon as he got on, someone was putting a blanket around his shoulders and handing him a mug of something warm to drink. Raikov didn't want it, but he drank anyway. It was better than sucking his thumb in front of all these people. He wasn't paying much attention to the taste, but he was almost positive it was tea with honey and bourbon. It was an old remedy his mother used to give him and his brothers when they were children and had caught colds from staying outside in the Russian winter too long. Nobody said anything, and the drive was felt much longer than it really was.

When they reached the hospital, Raikov shoved his empty mug into someone's hands and eagerly hopped out of the car, holding the blanket around his shoulders. He ran inside, pushing past the doors with his shoulders and running up to the small reception desk.

"Miss, you have to let me in. I'm looking for someone. He just got here a few hours ago. Please, you have to let me see him!" Raikov was practically begging at this point. The woman looked at him over glasses, and saw the concern in his eyes.

"Name?" she asked, her mouth almost a straight line.

"Mine or his?" Raikov sighed impatiently.

"Yours, then his." She replied. Raikov huffed and pushed his hair out of his eyes.

"I'm Ivan Raidenovitch Raikov, looking for Yevgeny Borisovitch Volgin." He said with pleading eyes, leaning forward on the desk and biting his lip. The woman looked through some papers, and it seemed to Raikov that she was purposefully taking a long time. She appeared to find what she was looking for and raised her eyebrows before looking up at Raikov again.

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen! Now let me see him, for God's sake!" She looked almost suspicious.

"Are you his son, or-?"

"Whatever gets me in the fastest!" he said, exasperated. The woman sighed and shrugged, looking back down at her paperwork.

"Go on ahead. He's room 207, down the hall to the left." Raikov said his thanks and took off down the hall, blanket and coat flapping behind him like he was some kind of exotic bird.

The room was too cold; Raikov could tell right away. He saw his darling lying in bed, and couldn't even begin to describe the overwhelming tidal wave of emotions he felt when he saw him. He let out a cry of anguish that sounded like a noise a wounded animal would make and threw himself onto the larger man. His tears slipped down his cheeks and he sobbed loudly into Volgin's chest when he realized there was no familiar static electricity to make his hair slightly stand up or give him pleasant zap on the cheek or nose. He stood up, wiping his tears on his sleeves and slowly taking the blanket off his shoulders and resting it on Volgin.

"I thought… Maybe you'd be cold…" he sniffled, smiling sadly and glancing at the heart monitor.

Beep… beep…

The noise was faint, but it was there. Raikov breathed a sigh of relief and looked back at his lover's sleeping face. It was almost haunting seeing Volgin so calm and eerily still. Raikov took one of the man's large hands and clasped it in two of his own. "Please be okay. For me. We've got a whole life together still, and there's no way you're going to accept defeat at the hands of that filthy American… You have to be okay. You just have to. I won't let you die on me. You take care of me, so now it's my turn." He said, climbing up onto the hospital bed. He pulled some of the blanket over himself and curled up next to Volgin, wrapping his arms around the man as much as he could. He let his eyes slip closed, and when the nurse came in to check on Volgin, she was surprised to see Raikov curled up against him with tear stains down his pale face.