Prague.

Yassen stood at a small window in the cold fading blue of the day. Through the spider's web of ice that had crystallised on the other side an old cemetery was visible, a jumble of broken mossy stones so dense that no path was visible, no order. Jewish graves, bodies one on top of each other, all piled in together in one concentrated patch of death.

Mist had started to creep towards this disused house an hour ago, at first only a slight haze and then thick tendrils that curled around the dark gothic buildings. Soon only the graveyard would be visible with its mess of stones sticking from the mist, cracked edifices lit by sickly orange streetlights.

For now though, the ground - twisted from so much digging - was still visible in the last light. It was these cold ends of days that reminded him of Russia; the weak light, the numb cold that sunk slowly into the bone. The wait in Moscow for the deathly cold of night to descend so that he could work, he could feel that cold in his soul still, it was what made him good. Then he'd lost it.

That night in the shooting range with John, that night when he'd smiled at him. He'd thought he was an idiot, who the fuck smiled? And what the fuck did they smile about? What was there to smile about? Everyone and everything dead apart from Vy, and he'd betrayed him, left him in the cold dark underworld while he swanned about eating and running. Fucking eating! Whenever he felt he needed to, and a bed and room of his own. The rage, it melted all his composure. He was angry because he'd traded that last piece of his humanity for this and it was even better than he'd thought it would be. He'd left the kid who'd curled up against his side for a year in the coldest part of the night for this and some part of him was trying to rationalise it. Trying to say it was worth it.

And John just smiled.

"Fuck off."

"I will when you hit the target."

"I can hit the target, fuck off."

"Go on then."

Yassen had brought the scope to his eye and really concentrated, trying to get rid of the cocky British shit but even worse than usual all he could think about was his hatred. He pulled the trigger too hard and the aim went awry. He missed altogether.

"Target's the orange thing."

"I know!" Yassen pushed the gun away. "Go away."

"I told you, not until you hit the target."

"Or perhaps I'll shoot you instead."

"Well you could, I suppose. If you didn't miss." And then he smiled again, amusement painted in the curve.

Yassen sat up and then got up and brushed himself off. "Leave me alone."

"If you can't shoot by tomorrow they're going to kick you out. They gave me one night to try and straighten you out."

He froze. "Who are you?"

"Hunter."

They'd been talking about him for weeks, the assassin that never failed, a legend in Malagasto.

"Get back down here."

"I can shoot."

"I know you can, I saw you kill Serov in Moscow."

Yassen had stood there staring at him. It was the job that got him here in the first place.

"Why were you there?"

"Recruits have to be assessed by two people. Golgstein gave his recommendation and I gave mine."

Yassen swallowed at the name, it disgusted him.

"So why can't you hit the target?"

"I can."

"Why can't you hit the target?" And that smile was back.

"I can fucking hit the fucking target!"

He had been barely able stop himself hitting the man, lying there with that smirk he wanted to beat him senseless.

"That's why." The man turned onto his back and clasped his hands behind his head. "What are you so angry about?"

Yassen had stayed silent.

"You don't have to tell me but you need to calm down if you're going to live through the next two days. Now get down here and hit the target."

Yassen knelt and lowered himself to the mat taking the gun back up and pulling it into his shoulder lining up his sights with the orange target.

"Relax."

"I'm trying."

"Come on Yassen."

He'd known his name. Since he'd come to Italy everyone had called him Cossack, he hadn't even had a conversation with anyone. He'd met John's brown eyes over the rifle and then looked down the scope and tried to push it all away, regain that cold. The empty hunger and the frozen fingers, shoulders hunched against the wind and Vy's grim determination when he'd first met him to live just one more day. He hit the very centre of the target.

"That's why I recommended you."

He'd passed the test the next day, still angry, but it was now a cold rage, John had smiled at him but he hadn't smiled back. He was like that always, it had made some people in the class underestimate him until he'd killed one of them for answering back, shot him in the chest. He'd annoyed Yassen, turning up when he was in the shooting range and teasing him until he was so exasperated his hands were shaking. He'd thought him mad, a lunatic in fact.

One evening when the rest of the compound was asleep and he was lying awake Yassen gave up the struggle to keep his eyes closed and dressed heading for the range. At least Hunter wouldn't be there; he could properly concentrate.

Lying down Yassen started shooting, trying to tap that inner cold and succeeding somewhat.

"Still not shooting as well as you did in Russia."

Yassen sighed, how long had he been standing there?

"You didn't think that you'd avoid me just by shooting in the small hours of the morning…"

"Why do you do this?" Yassen asked as he lay down beside him.

"Amusement." He began talking, just talking. He was only doing it to annoy him, and after a while he just stopped listening letting the English wash over him. Then the man changed tactics and, in nearly perfect Russian said:

"I got a smile out of Zulu today."

Yassen raised his head and looked at him before shaking his head. It was just typical that he'd be able to speak Russian, he couldn't ignore him so easily now. He put his eye back to the scope and tried regardless.

"Why do you never smile back Yassen?" he'd always used his name when they were alone.

"I don't want to smile."

"Why?"

"I've got nothing to smile about." He let another round go.

"Do you want to be here?"

"Yes."

"Then why not enjoy it?"

"I've got no right to."

"Why?"

He chose not to answer but missed his next shot, and sighed getting up.

"Where are you going?"

"Bed. I'm tired."

"Leave me the rifle."

Yassen handed him it and watched as he turned over onto his front and pulled his knee up to keep his breathing from affecting his aim too much. He shot perfectly through the rest of the magazine Yassen had left him and got up.

"Still got it."

"What kind of score was that?"

"All in a ten pence piece." He grinned.

"How do you do that?"

"I relax. And I don't curl up as much as you do." He pulled out the empty magazine. "Are you still tired or do you want a lesson?"

"Why would you do that?"

"I like you."

And he'd laughed. Bitterly. John had stared at him cocking his head to the side.

"Tell me, what is it you find so blackly amusing about that?"

Yassen took the rifle from him. "You don't like me, you just want something."

"True, but I only want it because I like you."

"What do you want then?"

"You'll just have to wait and see."

Yassen laid down with a mutter. "Fucking schizophrenic." He winced as two magazines hit him in the back.

"I heard that."

Yassen re-loaded the gun and settled into firing position eyes going wide as Hunter took hold of his right leg and lifted it into a different position. As he went to fire he instinctively moved it.

"No." he pinned it in place hands pressing down on the back of his knee. "Keep it there."

"It doesn't feel right."

"That's because you were taught wrong."

"I wasn't taught."

"Precisely."

It was the first time someone had touched him since he'd left Russia. It felt strange. He found in this position his shoulder wasn't so crunched up and his aim was steadier. He felt less stable though.

"Take a shot."

He hit the very centre of the target.

"Good?"

"Yes." Yassen felt the corners of his mouth twitch upwards.

"You're smiling."

It dropped from his lips.

"Zulu and You… What a day." He sighed. "Now you've gone all tense again."

They'd seen each other nearly every night after that, Yassen had become slowly easier with him, more accepting of his strange humour and his smiles. Now that he looked back on it he wondered if John had picked him out as early as Russia, seen some sort of humanity in him that he'd risked everything to try and cultivate. Even if it was just to alleviate his own loneliness.

John had been lonely, lonely and horrified with himself. He'd manipulated Yassen into his bed at first for a distraction, some way of forgetting that he was a lie and that a wife waited for him back in England. Then, once he'd told him the truth he'd become some sort of escape where he could be a good man in the midst of his murder and lies. Perhaps he'd been just as desperate.

At the beginning though he kept his distance, which is to say that he didn't try and seduce him till he'd almost finished his training two years later. He'd left for a job for three weeks, Yassen remembered grudgingly missing his presence at the shooting range, and then found himself wondering if John would come back at all and how much he actually looked forward to seeing him. He was the only one who said anything nice to him and, as much as it pained him to admit it, whatever it was between them had started to feel dangerously like friendship.

He'd returned to find him, as always, lying on the fake grass lining up with the orange targets.

"So you've forgotten everything I've tried to teach you."

"Your back." He'd sat up and almost smiled. John had looked different, a bit harder, from what he'd told him later he could guess that he'd been more than mildly disgusted at what he'd had to do. Perhaps that was what provoked what followed. "How was it?"

"Messy, did you miss me?"

Yassen chose not to answer, John had laughed.

He knelt down and then laid down, on his left this time, behind him. He'd taken up his stance and John had tutted leaning over him and adjusting the angle of his hips with one hand and the placement of his knee with the other. Holding him still he'd been knelt against him, front of his thighs and his hips against his side and lower back. The contact felt strange, almost… good. He tried to ignore it taking a shot and then another.

"Okay?" John had asked

"Fine."

His thumb on his right hand had moved, stroking against his skin through his trousers, and Yassen felt a little rush of adrenaline. Had he done it on purpose? If so why? His heart sped up, everywhere John was pressed to him felt hot, hypersensitive. He withdrew his hands leaving him strangely cold and then lay down. Yassen relaxed a bit rolling onto his side to roll his shoulder in it's joint. Only John was lying directly behind him and he bumped into him, back to his muscular chest and found that suddenly his hand was back on his hip and they were pressed together entirely.

"You've lost your position now, here."

His hand shifted to his knee and held it to his own which he moved to the right position. Then it ran up his thigh to his hip again, exciting every nerve in his leg. He lay there with John breathing into his hair for a long time, utterly clueless as to what he should do. Was he coming onto him? Yes. What should he do about that? His thumb moved again, stroking his hip this time and Yassen swallowed thickly, perhaps if he didn't respond then he might move off. Heart racing and with shaky fingers let off a shot.

It only just hit the target.

"Relax." He said from behind him, murmuring the word into the back of his neck sending another wave of goosebumps down his back. "I can feel that you're too tense."

He moved ever so slightly against him, shifting closer, and his hips bumped against his bum and pressed to it. Then his fingers slowly graced beneath his shirt, skipping over his abdomen.

"Take another shot."

He was almost shaking, he could feel his muscles contracting and his skin tingling underneath his fingertips. Wide eyed he took another shot and then gasped as he traced his bottom rib and pressed his lips to the back of his neck. He leant his face against the rifle, abandoning the scope and felt his breathing stutter as John slid his fingers down slowly to the hollow of his hip and then further, beneath the waistband of his trousers.

Very clearly he remembered Golgstein telling him to turn over, telling him to be louder, telling him to look at him. Suddenly he was terrified, and angry because he'd just come to the realisation he liked the man who was currently trying to grope him. Should he just let him do it? Was it like everything else in Malagasto? A little pleasure mixed with a little pain, a catch in every good fortune? Perhaps he'd force him if he tried to stop him anyway.

As John's fingers had burrowed deeper into his underwear he felt a little disgusted and closed his eyes burying his face in his arms and letting the gun fall. Then he just stopped. John's hand had to be less than a centimetre from his erection but he'd just stopped.

"You don't want this…" he said. Confusion and some disappointment in his voice.

Yassen stayed curled up, face hidden, he didn't move even when John pulled his hand from his trousers and rolled onto his back behind him with a huff.

"A whole fucking year…" he muttered, not angry. More in a mocking tone as if he found that fact vaguely amusing as well as frustrating. Yassen lay there frozen. "Why didn't you fight me?"

"You'd win."

"You think I'd rape you?"

"I don't know."

"So you'd have just let me."

"It's payment."

John was silent for a long time.

"You ever done that before? Let someone…"

Yassen said nothing, he probably already knew…

"I asked you a question."

"I did it for my life… If I didn't leave Russia the mob would have killed me."

"Golgstein's a sick fuck."

"Yes."

And they'd moved on. Admittedly with a little more awkwardness than before. Yassen remembered having a few dreams from which he'd wake uncomfortably hard or sticky, he blamed it on stress and lack of sleep. Then he'd taken him to the jungle for his final assignment and everything changed.