(russia)
Another day, another endless set of files. At least they were making good headway in the Northeastern region of the Union, thought Ivan. With any luck - and a lot of help from Eduard - they could finish the entire Northern region in a few weeks.
Three-quarters of the work would then be remaining. Ah well, he thought, this is why we work hard to catch up on what we've lost. Extra effort now would mean that once everything was done they could relax and his chief role would be maintenance and upkeep of work. Hopefully, they'd finish before Katya's wedding.
And that thought upset him enough to go bother Arisha for an early tea.
When he'd returned, Eduard had already picked up a few of the files tagged in green. "What are you doing working on those?" Ivan scolded.
"They weren't locked up," Eduard said. "And I finished with my pile, and this was the next one closer, and they didn't seem like they were classified." He returned to flipping through the pages. "In fact, I can't work out what these have men done that you're trying to keep tabs on them."
"They are ..." oh, how to explain... "well, they have not done anything, really, they're just - Katya's fucking suitors," he gritted. Eduard looked taken aback. "What?"
He shrugged. "You don't usually swear, that's all."
"I seldom have reason to," Ivan said. And then, upon reflection, corrected himself: "That is an outright lie. I usually have reason to, but vulgarity is not something I enjoy indulging in. I have better manners than that normally."
Eduard lowered his gaze back to the folders with a slow, easy smile.
"What?!" Ivan asked.
"So you are getting used to me!" he said triumphantly.
"Oh, for - get back to work!" Ivan admonished. He picked up the first folder he saw and tossed it across the table at Eduard, who caught it with a laugh. Ivan couldn't fight a smile returned. "I meant real work," he said, yanking the files on Katya's suitors out of Eduard's hands, and handing him another.
"I take it you don't like any of them?" Eduard asked.
"An understatement! I dislike them all."
"The one on the bottom seemed okay."
Ivan checked through the set to see the name. "Poda? No, he is quite slimy. He has a habit of paying his taxes very late and he's also a drunkard."
"Says the man who goes out once a day for three hours to the tavern like clockwork," Eduard reminded with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.
"Hey, I deserve my three-hour break when the rest of my time is spent working!" Ivan protested. "Besides, that is more of a religious meeting. I do not exactly have time to go to church, and the rest of the Empire Union would prefer it if I didn't so flagrantly deny the mainstream beliefs. So church comes to me." Church also brought him vodka. Best church ever.
"What about this one?" Eduard asked, and reached over the desk to tug at one of the middle files from Ivan's hands.
"If that is Spiridon Marinin, don't even get me started. He embezzled away his mother's veteran fortune - who, by the way, fought valiantly in the Revolution - for five years, until there was nothing left and he's magically a millionaire. His own mother! And he was involved in a moonshine vodka scandal ten years ago that caused an entire village to go blind. And I am pretty sure he's a con man. And also he is ugly and fat."
Eduard was giving him that raised-eyebrow look again. "Okay, I admit it, that last bit has nothing to do with anything and I am just being petty." He didn't stop the look. "Oh, what now?!"
"That's a neat trick," Eduard said. "You see, on purpose, I said nothing, so that I wouldn't get you started, and you went and told me the story anyway."
Ivan gave him a glare, which Eduard ignored in favour of the file.
"And it wasn't Spiridon Marinin, either, it was some other guy! Do you like any of your sister's suitors?"
"No," Ivan pouted. "They all suck."
There came a knock on the door, and Arisha entered with fixings for tea and a plate of sweets stacked on a tray. Honeycakes and marshmallows and dark chocolate! Ivan beamed. "Arishka moya, you are far too good to me," he told her happily, while helping himself to a piece of zefir.
"Dinner at seven," Arisha reminded him as she left, "don't eat too much."
Which reminded Ivan. "And that is another thing I hate about Marinin, he is a glutton." He didn't need to look up from his desk to see the judging look on Eduard's face; somehow, that look - those eyes, that smile - could be felt through the air alone. "I am a growing boy, I am allowed to have these things. You always get a metabolism shift after your Time, so it's okay for me. Spiridon on the other hand is sixty-two."
Eduard whistled. "Is it common for someone so old to pursue someone as young as your sister?"
"Mmmph -" Ivan swallowed the bite of marshmallow quickly - "and that's another thing I hate about Marinin, he is a creepy old man!"
"By that logic, you must love the Veshnan," Eduard decided.
The Veshnan. Ivan took a minute to have some tea and reflect first. "I do not know much about him. What I do know, I do not like," he said darkly.
"Oh, come on. The man's practically a saint! No wars in - where does he come from, Bizhi - hasn't been a war there in decades. Responsible governor. Perhaps a little autocratic - that just means Gospozha Bragina and he will be compatible. Not a creepy old man, doesn't drink, decently attractive -"
Ivan set his teacup down on the saucer with a heavy clink. "He owns five bondspeople."
The cool politeness of Eduard's forced smile was somehow lost in his twitch of his lower lips, his excessive blinking, and his fingers anxiously drumming on the desk.
"The system is not right," Ivan insisted. "What gives anybody the power to decide who is going to do what with their lives? A person should choose that for themselves."
"Oh, so you'd be alright with it if people gave themselves willingly?"
To the devil with smart bondsmen, Ivan thought, frowning.
He wanted to say no. In no way did the economics of taking advantage of people seem right to him, but if a person - hypothetically speaking! - desired to give themselves up as a sexual slave to another - well, it was their life, wasn't it? Wasn't it their decision? The fact that it didn't happen that way - that children were given by their parents for their parents' monetary gains, and the children were not of sound mind to choose these things - wasn't part of this question.
If the system could be changed so that instead, people of age elected to sell themselves into slavery, could he support that?
Unthinkable, of course he couldn't, no human being could be the legal property of another, it was inhumane, immoral. All men and women were made free in God's image, partakers of the Heavenly Gift. As though certain men and women were reduced to mere animals, without much distinction but who offered the best price for their worth.
Besides, it would never happen. And that was a common logical fallacy he'd been taught from debating classes, using unrealistic, hypothetical scenarios to draw a conclusion that was then extrapolated to the real world.
But was it really so unrealistic a scenario, he thought, when there were people who volunteered their children for sexual slavery? Or better yet, for other things, indenturing them in a position regardless of their own teleological motivations - innate or decided - selected a job for them years prior to their birth -
"I know you don't like these questions," Eduard murmured with a soft smile and friendly eyes. He leaned forward on the desk, propping his head on his hand, fanning himself with the folder Ivan had given him, held in his other. He gave Ivan a wondering, searching gaze. "I'll tell you what," he decided at last. "Answer either that question, or this one: What really happened in Zapreschniy state?"
Ivan took up his teacup again, trying to wash down the displeasure at having to answer either. "This is a bit of a thorn stuck in your side, I see."
Eduard slid the folder-turned-fan across the desk smoothly so that Ivan could see the label. That explained his second question. God, he really ought to keep this one under lock and key.
"It doesn't make any sense to me," Eduard admitted, a little nervously. "Why wouldn't I be curious?"
"I am not saying it is a bad thing." Not necessarily. Actually the opposite - he enjoyed that Eduard asked him these questions, loved that he got to discuss these kinds of things. If it weren't for the fact that this man were here, held against his will, Ivan would have been so happy.
(And really, he wished he could forget that part, too. But he couldn't, it wasn't right.)
"You are free to ask me anything you want, you know that."
"It's just this stupid file. And all the others, too! I don't understand half of why anybody does anything -"
"It is alright." He patted Eduard's hand, trying to be comforting or calming but it backfired when the man's entire body jerked in surprise. "I understand," he said, feeling awkward, "I grew impatient fast when - during the - but of course you remember what those symptoms were like." More awkward! What a delightful conversation topic he'd clumsily stumbled onto. He felt so dumb talking to this man. "Anyway. A lot of it has to do with protocol and bureaucracy - things are the way they are because that is the way they have always been. And things are the way they have been because before they were, they were like this!"
Eduard leaned in with a serious look, both eyebrows raised.
He sighed. "I know. I wish I had a better answer for you."
"At least explain the story behind Zapreschniy, then," Eduard suggested, and then asked, softly, "please?"
He felt his cheeks grow warm and couldn't make himself return Eduard's earnest, demure gaze. Magic word indeed.
Ivan looked out the east-facing window to the rear of the Duma grounds. Even east, the sky was still fairly light, the overcast clouds a soft blueish grey. It would be twilight-dark in an hour, and the landscape would split roughly into three sections: one band of deep blue clouds overhead, one band of black - the silhouette of the evergreen trees in the distance, and one band of fresh white snow field at their feet.
That might be a better setting for this kind of conversation.
"This is a very, very long story," he began, and Eduard's face fell momentarily. "But I shall tell you. Let's go take a walk."
.:.
It was much colder than it looked outside. The snow squeaked underfoot and there was a violent wind that every so often would strike him in the face so hard it momentarily took Ivan's breath away.
"Will that coat be warm enough for you?" Ivan asked as they walked. It was the warmest one he owned in a size that would fit Eduard properly. "I expect the shipment from the tailor to arrive tomorrow."
"I'm fine," Eduard said. "We might walk a little briskly. So - Zapreschniy?"
Ivan began. "Zapreschniy state lies west of here, near the Democratic Republic of Kilnus' most eastern lands. The border is formed by a mountain range, four of which are volcanic, but dormant. There is decent mining and farming possible, and it has a good-sized lake. The state itself is an historic region of both Kilnus and the Union, so the boundaries have always been hotly disputed. That there should be strife in that area is not wholly surprising."
They came to one of the benches along the path and sat down. "Why can't they come to some agreement once and for all?"
"Both Vitim and ethnic Kala live in Zapreschniy, and I should think, they would have completely ignored each other if left to their own devices. In fact, there would be no issue if it were possible for them to intermarry. But it is too easy to divide the two, and biologically impossible to unite. There are too many reasons for both sides to want the land.
"Seven hundred years of military exploits on either side and the borders of the exact state get very fuzzy. While there has been what passes for peace between the Empire and Kilnus for about fifty years, Zapreschniy conflicts are on-going. And both Kilnus and Vityaz enjoy pretending nothing is happening."
"So parts of what is now Vityaz-ruled Zapreschniy were formerly Kilnus territory."
"And you can imagine how happy this makes the Kala of Zapreschniy. Likewise, portions of Kilnus land was once Vityaz, and the Vitim of Zapreschniy are significantly less than impressed. Now, about ten years ago we signed the treaty for the mountain range to be used as the border. Kilnus has their part, we have ours - so, we are done, yes?"
"Theoretically," Eduard observed, and Ivan winked.
"Following the Counterstrike, my sister and I divided many of the states up in terms of rule. Zapreschniy state was ... one of the first files I received as acting regnant co-power."
"Ten years ago you would have been fourteen." Ivan nodded. "Fourteen and people wanted you to rule over states you'd never seen or been to in your life?"
"You must remember, with the Counterstrike, it was Katya and I in power with the help of advisors and governesses since I was seven. The house of Bragin needed to put on a strong face for the Empire and I ... yes, I was young. But not that young! I admit I made some mistakes I would not have made now, certainly. With Zapreschniy ... strategically speaking, I had always been taught to prevent uprisings before they occurred. I thought having Kala in Vityaz territory would only increase conflict." He shifted uncomfortably on the bench, feeling restless, and then simply decided to get up and pace around.
"What did you do?" Eduard asked, and Ivan didn't look at him as he answered.
"I deported the Kala of Zapreschniy across the mountains to Radem, the nearest Kilnus village."
Eduard remained silent. "Eduard, I thought it would be safer for them, and in the case of another conflict, Kilnus would have intervened anyway on behalf of their citizenry, either legal or by fiat of being Kala -"
But he merely held up a hand, interrupting Ivan. Instead of anything critical, he said, "And how was that received?"
Not well, Ivan recalled. "Kilnus didn't like it. But they liked less what happened after - a few of the trains never made it to Radem. Those aboard them were never found. Kilnus believes, as we do, that they perished in the mountains - the range itself is large. Neglecting the weather and wind dangers, there are many technical climbing challenges even if you have adequate training and tools."
"And this was ten years ago," Eduard confirmed. Ivan nodded. "Okay, so what happened after that?"
"I disliked administrating from such a long distance - it is difficult to tell what exactly is going on. To me, it feels like a chess game, you are just moving pieces on a board and it is so easy not to consider the knight's feelings when you send him to his death just so that the king may live on. But people are not pawns... Well, the loss of those trains - a little over a hundred people, they told me - was difficult for me to take. That minor tragedy, Katya mostly hushed up for me, in exchange for control over the region. And she had more experience than I did. So she swapped me two of her 'easier' files closer to home, and I felt a little better about that, at least.
"Fast forward seven months. Katya sent troops to invade Darinys - Zapreschniy state, Vityaz side. A small city at the foothills of Tartsvoy Mountain in the range - perhaps a hundred thousand people. She did it on the grounds that there were Kilnus operatives in the area."
"She just guessed this, or what?"
Ivan shook his head. "There was a decent amount of evidence from our intelligence forces that Kilnus had somehow crossed the range and was providing aid and humanitarian goods - which, to me, was not a great problem - and arms - which was."
"But Darinys was a Vityaz town?"
"Vityaz-governed. Populated by some Vitim, but mostly ethnic Kala and Sprus."
He could see the cogs working in Eduard's head. "So this town was where your train passengers were hiding?"
"Ah - not quite..." That would have been nice. He wasn't sure how to begin. "In fact it gets worse." Ivan felt even more nervous and awkward. "I - I don't want you to - no doubt you will think of me as some sort of uncaring tyrant!"
Eduard leaned forward on the bench, sincere and inquisitive. "I don't think of you like that." Wait until I'm done, Ivan thought. "So. The Gospozha sent troops."
"Right. The Kilnus operatives in the area were intelligence operatives from the capital of the Republic. They weren't supposed to be there, either; they had crossed borders in a time when we were closed-off. Katya's operatives revealed that they were coordinating plans with Kilnus to take back a few strategic points in the state for Kilnus. First Darinys, and after that, two towns to the north, one north east, a few more. It was a path back to Kilnus through the mountain range."
"With what army?" Eduard asked.
"Unclear. Kilnus Central claimed they knew nothing about this, so besides their own spies, I don't know who had weapons training or anything. I thought they presented little threat - we had no solid evidence that all this was any more than talk - but Katya was not so convinced. She thought perhaps the operatives were training civilians, raising their own makeshift army, and I agreed that was dangerous. She sent some twenty marines to take down the spies.
"The marines were supposed to penetrate the town and take down the operatives. A stealth mission. Not something for spies, but not really going in with guns blazing, either. But they failed and were found out. Once the smoke cleared, the fifteen left alive were held and questioned by the Kilnus operatives in Darinys. Katya was told that they would be kept hostage until such time that Katya allowed the city to be declared federal Kilnus territory. Just Darinys, they didn't negotiate for the others."
"I can't see her liking an ultimatum like that," Eduard murmured, "faced with an act of sedition."
"Ah. No. She did not. Instead of capitulating, Katya sent more marines who went in. A lot more. We still don't know who fired the first shot in the resultant standoff but it quickly spiralled into a much larger battle between the Vityaz marines and the Kilnus intelligence operatives, who were hiding behind Kilnus civilians, who were also armed."
"What happened then?"
"Then, I heard of it, what Katya was doing, and I told her to stop it immediately at any cost."
"And?"
The wind picked up and ruffled his hair, pricking his ears. He could have done with a hat, he supposed. Ivan took a seat next to Eduard and folded his arms across his chest. Took a deep breath, and said, "And the next thing I heard the entire city was razed and nearly everybody was dead."
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Eduard shivering. "I'm sorry!" he said, and turned to rub Eduard's upper arms and shoulders, to give him some warmth, "this is such a long story and you must be getting cold, your cheeks are bright red -"
"No, no it's fine," said Eduard weakly, "really. Go on?"
He sighed. "After the fall I took the case back. Katya wanted to search for survivors and deport any back to Kilnus but I was not sure this would be a good idea, after what had happened. Supposing they too died in the mountains! Besides, to have people with this information back in Kilnus would be a terrible idea. Better that nobody knows what actually happened. So I initiated construction of a new village not far where this city was. Anybody who was not in Darinys at the time later came back to a story of deportation and bandits and was redirected there. And this is Aritsevskiy posyolok as we now know it."
"What exactly do Savva Yozhin and Major Teresya Vmalkhina have to do with all of this?"
"I'm still not sure," Ivan muttered, "but that is a good point. Perhaps a background check on both will give us some answers."
They sat in silence for a moment. "Does that clear things up a bit?" Ivan asked.
Eduard laughed derisively, a short, hollow, almost bitter sound. "Hardly!" he said.
"Well I don't know what else to tell you!" Ivan threw his hands up in frustration. "This is all I know."
"So things were left, just like that? A city of a hundred thousand people, completely gone, reduced to rubble? You never found out what precisely happened?"
"You don't think I tried?" Ivan shouted. "Don't you think I tried at all? There were a hundred thousand men, women and children who could write you books on farming and fishing and who knew not one single thing about war and did not deserve to die!"
"I'm sorry -"
"No, I am sorry," Ivan muttered, feeling stupid and clumsy. He tried to calm down, because it wasn't Eduard's fault at all, it was his own - should never have let Katya take something so sensitive, not with her disposition and her history; despite its location Zapreschniy really needed someone like Ivan, or maybe Natalya. Something about Eduard - perhaps his patience in listening, perhaps his astounding ability to uncover holes in Ivan's logic - had an annoying tendency to throw him off completely while also making him want to do right. Often in his tenure as acting regnant co-power, Ivan had been forced to do the best thing possible. It wasn't always the right thing.
"The only thing I could think of that would reduce such a distance to rubble is perhaps the explosion of an airship. You attach a fuse and the correct explosive to the fuel vials, you could get up to some ten kilometres blast radius with that. Detonated in the air, you could destroy a city."
"Is there any evidence?"
"Sure enough, when I checked later, Katya had flown in the troops via several ships. Four ships flew in, none were accounted for."
"What did she think happened to the ships?"
Ivan shrugged. "Probably the same thing that happened to the trains in the mountains - rusting away and abandoned, picked over for parts. Maybe a hobo has found himself a nice home. I don't know."
"You regret it," Eduard observed. "You regret what happened in Darinys."
And instead of picking the defensive route, Ivan went with another. "I have a list of a hundred thousand names, hidden away like all my mistakes. Thereafter, whenever Katya picked up my files, because of - of my condition, I let her. But I at least tried to intervene when she went too far. Those times my intervention was unsuccessful, I read a few pages of names to remind myself of accidents and difficult decisions. To remind myself that the bishops, rooks and knights of the state might have families of their own."
What a miserable, awkward conversation. But at least this made him look marginally better than a hypocrite, he hadn't fancied answering Eduard's other question about the bondsperson trade. "I suspect we had better get back to the Duma," Ivan mentioned, pulling out his pocketwatch and giving it a few half-hearted winds. It let his hands have something to do, made him feel less uncomfortable. "There is a state function tonight. A shower might be nice before it." And after it, too.
"Why are you doing that?"
"Just winding the watch."
"What for?"
Ivan looked up at Eduard's curious expression. "You... don't know how it works?"
Eduard shook his head. "I've never needed a timepiece. How does it work?"
"It is an old design," Ivan admitted. "These days they function with a power source, same as an Eavesdropper, but this one you have to provide power to it. When I wind this bit here -" he showed him - "it tightens the mainspring inside. The spring then uses that energy to move the balance wheel back and forth, and the periodic motion of the wheel is what adds up to seconds, minutes, hours, and the like." He noticed Eduard hadn't stopped looking at the watch once and asked, "You want to try winding it?"
"Yes - wait, I won't break it, will I?"
"Of course not," Ivan said with a light laugh, and plunked the timepiece in Eduard's palms. The gentle way Eduard held it - reverently, like it was some fragile egg of an item - made him smile. "Pull out the crown one stop - that is one click. Yes, like that. Now just spin it clockwise with your fingertips and keep going until you meet some resistance. Then you are done."
Eduard did as he instructed. "This is amazing," he said, still transfixed. "And it doesn't have a radiation source?"
"No need. Anyway, I can show you how it works, but later. For now, we had better get back and finish some work before the function." Which reminded him. "It will be boring, but you may come if you like. It might help you with some insight into politics."
"Not more Zapreschniy?" Eduard said distastefully.
He laughed. "Ah, haha... no. Not quite. One of Katya's suitors will be joining us for dinner. A private affair, just family and close friends."
"I'm neither," Eduard replied neutrally, and placed the wound pocketwatch carefully back in Ivan's hand.
I wouldn't be so sure, Ivan thought. After all, even Brother Toris didn't know about Darinys (and, God willing, he never would). And all Eduard had had to do was ask. But he didn't want to embarrass Eduard - or himself - any further, and simply said, "You may suit yourself. It is only a small function. Either you take your dinner alone in our rooms or you take it with me as we tolerate Katya's fat bloated louse of a suitor for two and a half hours."
.:.
And so, at quarter to seven, instead of donning his coat and scarf and high-tailing it merrily to the Kapriz Gosudartvsa, Ivan unhappily pulled on his finer dress trousers, the ones with the silver braid on the seams, thinking, had they always been so form-fitting? Well, no time to have them taken out by Arisha.
Eduard had said he would join him tonight, and for reasons he couldn't describe, it made him slightly more cheerful. When he reflected on it, the best he could do was joy that there would be one more person there on his side, in his corner of the ring, because Katya's rodnaya would want whatever Katya wanted, and he wasn't sure whether Natasha would be able to see how grotesque Katya's suitor was. But now, at least, he could whisper petty and mean things about Marinin to Eduard and they'd laugh quietly together. It might almost be fun!
He heard a noise like clearing a throat - probably Eduard at the doorway, he thought - and turned around. "Are you already finished?" he asked. Mostly finished, he corrected himself - Eduard's waistcoat was undone but everything else - suspenders, shirt, trousers - was in order except the tie.
"Uh," Eduard said eloquently, and blushed bright red.
"You're quicker than I thought; I'm impressed. I think it takes me five minutes to get into these pants and, ah, the less said about the style the better. I wish we would adopt a looser fit like the Veshnans." He sighed, grabbing the stiff shirt where it hung over the door of his wardrobe, and ungracefully shrugged into it. "You don't agree?"
"I agree completely. Tight pants are ... tight. And that's unfortunate. Um."
Preoccupied, Ivan thought this outfit of his really didn't look any better with the buttons done up and the shirt tucked in. That metabolism shift might also have something to do with these things. He prodded his belly, gave his reflection in the mirror a sad expression, and then reminded himself to suck it in. There, that made him look a little trimmer. "Anyway. Did you need something?"
Eduard nodded jerkily, nervously. "Um. Yes, I - I'm not sure what to do with this part of the outfit." He held up a long, thin strip of silk material - a necktie. That, at least, Ivan had been able to give him new; Ascot ties were one size fits most.
"Ah. Here." He stepped closer, lifted the collar of Eduard's shirt, and hooked the fabric around his neck, tugging gently. "One side slightly longer than the other," he noted, demonstrating. "You cross the longer over shorter like so - loop it around the shorter end, and back again underneath - then loop again over - bring this end through the neck here -"
- and here, his fingers accidentally grazed the soft skin of Eduard's throat. Eduard jerked, looking shocked. "Apologies," he mumbled. That's right, he thought glumly, he'd nearly forgotten the time he almost killed this man.
"And now you just adjust and tighten as you like." He left to dig through the open armoire for the tea-chest where he kept his tie pins.
"Am I done yet?" asked Eduard.
"Not quite - ah, here." An enamelled coat of arms of Vityaz, that looked stately. "You secure it like so -" Ivan stuck the pin through the top flap and then the second, and then through the shirt to keep the tie in place, before he secured the pin with the clutch. He smoothed it down a little and made final adjustments. "There, that looks good," he decided.
"Uh-huh," Eduard breathed.
"Now, the lower half of the tie is covered up by the waistcoat," he said, and demonstrated this by doing up the buttons. "Like so," he said, finishing and smoothing the soft, cool satin free of wrinkles. Really, this waistcoat looked far better on Eduard than it ever had on Ivan, he thought, it nipped at the waist perfectly, it looked good over the trousers and came to a nice length at Eduard's hips; even the pockets sat right and neatly, a trick of the eye that Ivan had relied on to make himself look impressive, but Eduard didn't need impeccable stitchwork to show how graceful and slender his figure was -
He realised he was staring, broke himself out of his self-made spell. This man is not a doll to be dressed, Ivan reminded himself scornfully.
"Anyway. That. That looks quite nice."
"Thank you," Eduard whispered. "You're not wearing a tie?"
"Hmm," he replied, putting on his own waistcoat - lower-cut than Eduard's, and plain off-white, didn't look nearly as nice as the dove grey satin - over his uncomfortably stiff-fronted shirt. "I have to wear a slightly different outfit," he explained, once he'd finished with the buttons, and grabbed his black bow tie and looping it around his neck to fasten it. "You're allowed to be in more comfortable clothing but apparently as the head of this empire I need to be respectful even when my dinner guests are perverted tasteless barbarians who wouldn't know the difference between morning dress and black tie if it were presented to them in a fifty-page spiral-bound report in the simplest Standard." He adjusted the bow. "With footnotes."
Eduard grinned, albeit a bit nervously. "This will be a fun night," he said.
Lastly he took the tailcoat off the hanger. It too didn't fit quite perfectly, but - that was evening dress for you, not terribly comfortable to begin with. At least one of them looked perfectly lovely. "That's not the word I would use. Oh! Before we leave -" he'd nearly forgotten. He pulled open the door to his armoire again, and this time grabbed the tea-tin stuffed at the back. He opened it and drew out an old silver pocketwatch on a chain.
"For you," Ivan told him simply. "If you like, I can have Arisha polish it a little, I know it is tarnished but not badly. And it needs to be wound - I have not used it in over a year - but now you know how to do that, too! After that it will work."
"I - Vanya, thank you. This is astounding," he said. It was a good thing he was so transfixed by the watch; he completely missed Ivan's deep blush.
"It is not a very expensive watch, it tends to lose time and needs to be wound daily," he admitted, putting the tin back in the wardrobe.
"It's the nicest thing anybody's ever given me," Eduard insisted, putting it in the waistcoat pocket and tucking the other end of the chain through a buttonhole, as Ivan tended to do. "Thank you. I mean it."
Ivan turned, and there was a moment where their gazes aligned, connected and held. Eduard's gratefulness had been evident through his words but his eyes, heartfelt and solemn, conveyed perhaps a nuance he'd overlooked in his voice. He felt his pulse thrum distantly in his ears, watched Eduard wet his lips, his feet seemed frozen to the spot -
The chimes of the Duma clocktower jarred him out of it, like a snap of a hypnotist's fingers from a trance. Seven on the dot, he counted.
Thank God for that, Ivan thought, ashamed of himself.
"We should get to the dining room," he said quietly, forcing himself to look at the ground.