Chapter Fourteen

Lars' POV

Two weeks later...

"I'll be right back, my love. I promise...it's just down the street there," Sergei spoke with a smirk to me as I continued to hug his larger, powerful form to my own, gathering a deep breath within my chest in order to let him go as I knew I was being a bit childish right now.

"I know...alright. Just hurry back, okay? We need that cooking oil if we want to have that one dinner tonight...and I really do," I reminded my lover as I eased my tight embrace and took a step back, fixing him with a knowing expression which told him I was being only half-serious with him.

Sergei smiled at me before ducking down his head and placing a quick kiss to my lips, my own mouth eager to feel his as I returned his parting gesture in kind.

"You worry too much, tovaras. You can go ahead and start with everything; I will be back soon," Sergei finalized as his fingers made a deft adjustment to one of his dark-brown leather gloves before he swiftly exited the apartment and closed the door behind him.

I heaved out the rest of the air I had had trapped inside my lungs, still hating it when he and I ran separate errands as we always had to wait on the other male to arrive.

I could only hope that nothing happened when we were parted, and not knowing for certain during such a tense time always seemed to set me on edge.

"Ugh, just relax...he said he'd be right back. It is just that tiny market he's going to...I've been there a hundred times...it doesn't take long," I told myself out loud as I navigated back further inside the apartment, mentally agreeing to Dragunov's idea about starting the preparations for our dinner tonight while I waited on him to arrive.

I needed something to do to keep myself busy in the meantime.

I told myself the strange feeling in the pit of my stomach was simple longing and nothing more.

I could not have been more wrong.

X

Third Person POV

Five hours later...

"Sir, why doesn't he talk...sir?" a gruff-looking, uniformed soldier asked his superior, an older man smoking a rotund cigar as the two of them continued to peer over at a bound, seated figure at the opposite side of the facility, "...we break his fingers, yet he does nothing. He almost looks...bored, sir."

At this, the older, bearded male huffed a smokey chortle as he and his younger subordinate walked over to stand before their captive.

"Nonsense, my boy..." the higher ranking officer spoke around his cigar before raising a white gloved hand and removing it from his meaty lips, "...you just have to break them slowly, let him really feel his bones snapping in half. Then he will sing for us, you see!"

Half-lidded, ice blue eyes peered up disinterestedly up at the two conversing officers clad in their green and red-decorated uniforms and tall black boots, Sergei Dragunov blinking exasperatedly slowly at them both, clearly annoyed with them and tired of the situation.

Sergei had gone to that market whence he had left his and Lars' apartment and entered onto the crowded city streets earlier that day.

He had walked down the road towards the fresh produce stands from which he knew he and his lover would need some items for later.

But it had been only after his next few steps on that chilled concrete that he had spotted them.

They were easily distinguishable from the rest of the normal people all shifting this way and that as they hustled from one stand within the market to the next to continue making purchases.

Those men might as well have been standing still as Dragunov had spotted them straight away, noticing the way the black-dressed men were noticing him too intently, going against the grain of the normal flow of the pedestrians.

Suddenly, a larger crowd of merchants and customers had enveloped the area he had been in, and before he had had time to react, a hand had grabbed Dragunov's arm and a body had pressed up against his side so that no one else would hear them speak to one another.

"Kak dela, Sergei Dragunov...come with us now and none of these good people need to pay the price for you being in their market at the wrong time...da, comrade?" a gravelly voice had growled out in a sickeningly low tone and Sergei could instantly hear that the person was military, not Spetsnaz like he was, but definitely of high military status.

Sergei's jaw had clenched as he spared one moment to look around the smiling faces of his fellow countrymen and women, innocent people just trying to live their lives without incident.

The stoic, Russian fighter had turned towards his aged but powerful proposer and nodded his consent to the terms.

That had been several hours ago, several hours of goons in too-pressed uniforms yelling in his face for him to start talking about his reason for competing in the King of Iron Fist Tournament and why he had left.

It had been hours of them not letting him have anything to eat, nothing to drink...and they have already broken three of his fingers.

Sergei had not uttered a sound.

The bound Russian continued to stare lazily at their hardened expressions, not caring in the least for the way the older man's smoke wafted into his face, as the younger of the two singled out another one of his fingers from the rest and began to slowly bend it at an awful angle.

Sergei quietly inhaled an amount of air from his nostrils, holding it...waiting...waiting and never breaking eye contact.

…c...crack!

Dragunov blinked his eyes again and he steadily released the air he had been holding, taking a moment to lick the roof of his mouth, a frown still on his face and no noise having yet escaped him.

"Very good, comrade..." the more decorated officer spoke to Sergei this time as he plucked his cigar from his teeth again, "...you have been trained well...not even allowed to voice when you are in pain...I like it...but how do you think, hm...he will take such treatment? He is not Russian like you, tovaras...he is not trained like you, da? Bring him out!"

Sergei looked towards the opposite corner of the darkened facility that the old man had shouted the last of his speech, Dragunov's eyes widened at once as he saw a struggling form in the middle of three men wrangling him into view.

"Let me go! Get the fuck off of me! Argh!" Lars Alexandersson was preoccupied with snarling curses at his stone-faced handlers as they dragged him into the dim light, before the Swedish male whipped his attention to the lone, seated figure.

"Sergei! Oh Jesus Christ...Sergei...what...I looked for you everywhere...are you alright? Tell me you're alright?!" Lars called towards his dark-haired lover, his tanned face tightening with anger and worry as Lars looked over Sergei's bruised cheeks, opened, tattered white shirt, and broken fingers currently resting on the arms of the chair.

"Shut him up now, damnit!" the commanding officer of the group hollered towards the men holding a fighting Lars, his voice booming in the otherwise empty facility and prompting one of the men to swiftly move to the front of Alexandersson and strike him squarely in his ribs.

Lars grit his teeth and could not help but choke on his spit as his body wanted to curl protectively around the source of pain, but the other two soldiers currently holding his arms far out at his sides made that impossible for the young man.

"Ha ha ha!" the old man laughed before spinning back around to Sergei, pleased to see such emotion becoming his usually unreadable face, "...so you see, my friend...we will start breaking his fingers, then his knees...then his arms...until you finally start cooperating with us and telling us what we want to know."

Thwack!

Sergei's jaw ticked as he watched as one of the other guards holding Lars swiftly punched his face to a side, Lars being wholly unable to defend himself as three men were overpowering his smaller stature with some effort but still succeeding nonetheless.

"Fuck you, you piece of shit...is that all you got?" Lars spat furiously at the man who had hit him, spitting a pink mixture of spit and blood onto the dirty ground at the others' feet as he tried to yank his arms free once more.

Bam!

Sergei's whole body shook.

His eyes were wide.

Lars has his blonde head thrown backwards, his eyes squeezed tight in agony as another soldier had kicked him solidly in his chin, making even the other guards currently restraining the Swede have to brace for that impact.

Dragunov had seen all of it as if it had been happening in slow motion.

He could feel his systems slowing down...slowing...slowing...

Sergei closed his eyes, as if making peace with something inside himself, as if finding some kind of odd, unexplainable calm in the midst of so much madness.

All of this was happening just because he would not tell this separatist sect of the military that he had participated in the tournament in order to capture Jin Kazama.

All of this was happening because he had let his guard down...

This was his fault...

"Ha ha! Break his fucking neck!" someone yelled.

Sergei's glowing eyes snapped open as the Russian immediately pooled all of his strength into his massive arms to burst through the thick ropes that bound his legs and arms to the wooden chair.

With a terrifying yell, one of pure, war-demanding hell, the veins pumped furiously against Dragunov's bulging muscles as the woven rope around him suddenly shredded to pieces as he quickly stood up from the shattered chair.

His white teeth grit and bared and his eyes menacing like a starving predator going after his helpless prey, Sergei immediately ran hard towards the soldiers currently holding Lars, his breathing already ragged and uncontrolled.

Demonstrating god-like strength and a mind unthinking, Sergei clutched one man's head in his large palm, gripping hard as he tore him away from Lars and punching him firmly in his chest, sending the weaker male flying backward with blood already oozing from a corner of his mouth.

White-blue eyes shifted sharply to another victim, Sergei's actions too fast, too ruthless to be calculated efficiently, as the Russian fighter was already wrapping his hands around another officer's neck and slamming his face into his rising knee, making a thick crunch noise of the man's nose and cheekbones being crushed to be heard by all.

Sergei let him drop, not even looking at a stunned Lars yet before sprinting towards another direction where there were more guards to be dealt with.

He needed to keep moving, to keep destroying limbs and faces and lives until the floor ran red with all of his enemies' blood...he needed to...

"It's...it's the White Angel of Death!"

"He has come for us!"

"The White Angel...!"

"What are you waiting for?! Shoot him! Shoot now! Before we're all killed!"

Sergei Dragunov was already finishing a flurry of devastating attacks on a few more men, his movements feral, raw and untamed as he tore through their ranks with unforeseen speed and unrelenting attacks.

He would kick, punch, elbow, pivot sides, knee, grapple down, and kick again...never slowing down and never losing strength.

Then, a gunshot rang out, a contained but petrifying boom that echoed across the spaces...but Sergei did not stop running, did not stop hunting for more people as he located the shooter and sped to face him.

"Shit! Shit!" the officer panicked as he aimed his firearm again at the Russian terror, his hand shaking before he fired off another round, able to see as bright red began coating Sergei's right shoulder as a result of the shot and also how it did not deter the attacker in the least.

Sergei growled at the shooter, enraged by the pain, spurned on by his own blood now running down his bare arm and soaking his palm, as he curled his fists and slammed them repeatedly into the young man's face, the Russian fighter's frame and power easily overtaking the latter in a brutal tackle.

"S-Sergei...! Sergei stop! Stop!" called a gentle but afraid voice called out through the darkness, cutting straight through the thick haze of Dragunov's senses as he had to shake his head to snap out of it, only then realizing that he was on his knees, a bloodied mess of a person sprawled out on the ground underneath his red-painted hands.

The officer below him was dead, several other men around the facility were no better...the smell of blood in the air was stifling, and Sergei could hear the muffling cries of the soldiers that were still left alive.

Lars rushed to his lover's side at once, pushing aside his own trepidations about being so close to Sergei Dragunov after he had just witnessed such a frightening display of insane violence, as he steeled his nerves and laid his hands comfortingly along Sergei's dropped shoulders.

Sergei was breathing hard as he submissively let his beloved Lars pull him up from the ground, the blonde-haired man turning the taller Russian towards him.

Sergei was silent, his features relaxed and exhausted, as now only he and Lars stood in the facility and gazed soulfully upon each other.

"Baby..." Lars breathed, taking in the sight of his lover's pale flesh spattered with brilliant ruby that stained his whole right arm in cascading streaks, before the Swedish-born male brought his hands to Sergei's hands.

"Oh Jesus, Sergei!" Lars exclaimed, bringing up Sergei's hands up to eye level and seeing the few fingers of his that were jutting out at unnatural angles, signaling the cruel breaks of the bones, "...your hands...!"

Sergei frowned and blinked his light-blue eyes at Lars' hands holding onto his own, cradling them, his lover's darker azure gaze finding his once more.

"I'm sorry..." Sergei apologized sorrowfully, peering at his lover's swollen cheek and busted lip with pain in his own expression as he lifted one of his injured hands to tenderly brush the backs of his fingers over Lars' wounds, the Russian regretting his carelessness and the price Lars had had to pay for it.

Lars swallowed hard and retrieved Sergei's hand inside his own once more, knowing that Sergei was currently not paying his own more severe injuries that much mind as he had performed such a gesture automatically and without remembering that his hands were in such a bad state.

Tears slipped free from Lars' sapphire eyes as he shook his head from side to side a few times.

"Sergei, there's...there's nothing to apologize for...I'm just glad you're okay...baby, we need to get you to a doctor," the Swede's usually pleasant voice was breaking with the weight of his fluctuating emotions, Lars being wholly thankful for this lover's overall safety, worried over the wounds he had nonetheless sustained, as well as just honestly beside himself that he had watched Dragunov lose his mind the way that he had on his captors.

The raven-haired male had transformed, turning into a completely different animal than what Lars had ever seen before, as his Russian lover had abandoned all care for human life as he had moved from person to person with malice in his lovely eyes before critically maiming each one of them.

And Sergei had done all of it for Lars.

The blonde male understood that Sergei had only made such a dramatic switch only whence he had witnessed those men delivering steadfast blows to his otherwise defenseless body.

That was when he had snapped...it was to protect him.

Right after the last strike had come from that officer, right before Lars had had to shut his eyes to deal with the pain of that kick, he had seen Sergei's entire demeanor change into something different, something...livid that had reached the surface and exploded.

And watching what had ensued from the taller male had...astounded the Swedish man...because he had never seen someone become so beautifully terrifying before, so in-tune with the flow of battle and destruction that it had mystified him in an instant.

Lars had felt intrigued...just like the first time he had ever seen Sergei Dragunov fight in the tournament, only this time, Sergei had been fighting to protect them both and it had been personal.

"No...I..." Sergei continued with hurt in his naturally low baritone voice to his beloved, "...I'm sorry...that you saw me like that. I never wanted you to see...I never meant to frighten you."

Lars' already fluttering heart broke apart upon hearing such words from his handsome lover, the one person who had saved his life a few times now to date from his quick reactions...just like how he had today.

Off in a corner of the room, another fallen soldier choked on more of his blood as he turned over to lie on his side.

Lars knew immediately just what he needed to explain to his remorseful savior.

"No...you hear me? Don't say...Sergei, listen to me..." Lars forced his voice to cooperate as he threw his arms around Dragunov's neck, forgetting about his boyfriend's wounded shoulder as he could not help but squeeze Sergei tight in his embrace, burying his face against his exposed collarbone, "...I'm grateful for what you did. Those men were about to kill you...and then me. I wouldn't be standing here if you hadn't acted...do you understand what I'm trying to say? I'm glad...grateful..."

Sergei lowered his gaze and loosely wrapped his aching, bleeding arms around his lover's lithe frame, finally feeling his world relax back into a peaceful state once again as he and Lars simply held each other, needing the solace the other provided and nothing more.

"...I could not handle what they were doing to you, my love..." Sergei continued to confess quietly, his voice no longer carrying that awful burden as he simply purred the soothing words down to his lover, turning his face into the silken spikes of blonde hair jutting out, "...I had to do something, and I just lost control."

"I know, baby...I know...thank you..." Lars replied just as somberly, just as sweetly, as he pressed a slow kiss to Sergei's neck before pulling his head back to he may look upon his handsome but dirtied features once more before continuing, "...let's get you cleaned up...and we really should have a doctor take a look at your arm."

Lars' eyes followed the flow of blood that ran from the deep cut that the bullet had made across the curve of Sergei's shoulder which trailed all the way down to his fingertips and dripped to the floor.

Dragunov tiredly nodded his consent before tilting his head slightly to one side as he considered the smaller male for another second.

"...after...I think it's time we head back...da?" Sergei posed the question as Lars slung his uninjured arm over his shoulders so he could help him while they walked out of the grim facility.

Lars hesitated for only an instant when he had heard Sergei's words to him, but he knew exactly what he had meant.

America.

He was talking about them uprooting from Russia and going back to America after all this time.

They might be sought after by tournament officials there...and both knew that.

But, after having this happen, they both knew that they were ready to handle it; they were ready to face whatever pressures awaited them as it had become too dangerous to stay in Russia after all.

Other military operations were on the move; they wanted to know about the King of the Iron First Tournament, and more importantly, they wanted their hands on Sergei Dragunov.

This proved that neither of them were safe here anymore.

Lars took a steadying breath before replying, his mind made and his ambitions clear.

"...after we get you to a hospital...yes...we will go back, " Alexandersson affirmed with a nod of his head as he and his most beloved person stepped away from the facility together, having exited peacefully arm-in-arm from the large doorway, and were now navigating a path off of main roads back towards their side of town, "...it's a good time for us to go back to the States, I think."

"Lars..." Sergei stopped walking and turned towards his boyfriend and most precious in the world beside him, his half-lidded sky-blue eyes trained on the smaller male's angelic features so close to his own, "...I'm glad we came to Russia. I'm glad I got to show you my country. I've never been so happy before in my life...and I have you to thank for that. Only you. I would have never felt this way if not for you."

Lars smiled as more crystal-clear tears slid down his cheeks and instantly cooled in the chilly nighttime air, always cherishing Sergei's words as the Russian male never wasted a one when he spoke to him.

"I'm glad, too...I loved seeing the place that you came from..." Lars replied with a heavy heart before sniffing back another tear and then speaking with much more resolve in his voice to his lover, "...and this is not over – our traveling. We'll go wherever we want, we'll take turns picking spots for us to live for a while...anything just so we can keep being together. This...this did not scare me off in the least bit, Sergei...those fucking bastards...we'll keep going. Isn't that what you've taught me? Never give up?"

Sergei blinked as if in a daze and smiled a gorgeous smile at Lars, his very soul warm within his bones and flourishing at his beloved's steadfast response.

"...da," Dragunov replied simply, agreeing wholeheartedly to everything Lars had said and what it made him remember about their time together up until this point; about how much they loved each other truly.

Lars squeezed Sergei a little tighter in his hold, loving him, treasuring him; able to recall several times in their past when Sergei had told Lars those exact words he had just now echoed to him now.

"Da," Lars confirmed just as simply, smiling.

X