Chapter 32
The Devil's Playground
Ashes. Embers.
When Ludwig saw the field, really saw it, when the adrenaline of success faded and the thrill of victory subsided, when every feeling of excitement waned down into a dull throb, when his eyes adjusted, when he saw it, his smile fell as quickly as it had come.
Fire.
The smell of gunpowder, mingled with smoke and snow and pine, and something else. Something sharp. Metallic. Blood.
The field was on fire. And so were the houses.
He didn't know why he walked then, but he did, and he found himself stepping through the high grass, walking towards the fires even as people ran past him to get away. Villagers brushed by him, seeking refuge from the flames.
Hypnotized, he pushed through the weeds, and into the clearing. Dead grass and melting snow beneath his feet. As he walked, he reached up, absently, and removed his cap. As if it were obstructing his view somehow. He stared up at the blue-black sky, as smoke rose up, glowing red by the light of the fire. Embers drifted up and down in the breeze. Stars above. A hazy mist below. He couldn't look away. Mesmerized. Absolutely spellbound.
Sounds came in and out.
He tore his eyes from the sky, and turned them to the houses.
Two soldiers stood off in front of one house, flamethrowers strapped on their backs and lighting up cigarettes as the flames passed from a neighboring building onto the residence. They just stood there, and watched it go up as they talked to each other, smiling every so often at something the other had said.
He looked to the other side.
A small group of students were in a standoff with an equally small group of soldiers. They were shouting at each other, each of them waving their guns threateningly in the air as they tried to get the other to back down. But, like Stalin had once said, it takes a brave man to be a coward in the Red Army, and the soldiers opened fire first, gunning all of the students down before they could even pull their triggers. There was no compromising with this army. No overpowering. No running.
He turned his eyes.
A woman ran into the field, dragging her child by the hand. He lost sight of them as they entered the high grass, towards the forest. Why hadn't they run earlier? Why hadn't the students gotten all of the villagers out, knowing that this would happen as they had? If they had looked hard enough, couldn't they have found a way around the military blocks? Why had they held their ground? In a stupid, naïve attempt to protect their houses? Because they were stubborn? Because the original raid had never come to be on the night it should have, and so they had let down their guard?
Why? Why had they stayed? He didn't understand.
A great blast from the right drew his eyes.
A tank, the gun atop it smoking, was barreling towards a building, where students were on the second level, trying to get in some shots. The gun on the tank had lit up the bottom level with fire. There was no way back down. The students tried to climb out the window. The soldiers in the tank pushed open the hatch, raised themselves up, and opened fire. Some of the students hit the ground before the bullets struck them, and bolted as fast they could.
A soldier with a flamethrower waited. Fire.
Wasn't this overkill? Why so much, for so few? Why?
Oh—
Because he had divided it up this way, back in Ivan's office at home. He had decided on this many men, and this many tanks. He had done this. Him. His decision. So that Ivan would be proud of him.
It had worked.
Where was Ivan?
Why not just shoot them, quick and easy? Why bring the flamethrowers? No one had said anything about flamethrowers. Why? To make a statement? To crush the spirits of other groups? To make it known that in the Soviet Union dissenters would pay the ultimate price?
Ludwig stood there, and just watched as clothes caught fire and desperate kids tried to drop and put out the flames, only to be shot where they fell. Some of them ran off into the other forest, on fire as they were.
Screeching. Awful sounds.
He should have stayed back on his side. This part had not been his job. He should not have come over here. He had done his job. Why strive to do Ivan's, too? Now he was stuck, trapped in this lurid scene by morbid fascination. He couldn't look away. He had never seen anything like it.
And, oh...
He had never wanted to. Too late. He couldn't look away.
He turned to the left.
A student tried to outrun a soldier, who followed her through the brush, shooting. But he missed her, again and again, and she slipped inside of a house in desperation, barring the door and no doubt hiding under a table or inside a closet. She had not escaped; the soldier shot out the lock, and kicked open the door. A shrill cry from within. Gunfire.
Silence.
The soldier walked out. The girl did not. Ivan's orders—no survivors.
Out in front of one tank, a group of soldiers had gathered, their rifles slung over their backs as they laughed to each other, oblivious to the hellfire behind them, having completed their section of houses. Time to relax. They carried on a conversation as though all were right in the world, passing around a cigarette.
Where was Toris? Below the hill, still clearing out the last of the makeshift barricade?
Fire all around. The heat melted the snow and created a muddy patch of earth. Beams fell from the burning houses.
A soldier suddenly came up to Ludwig, holding a lighter in his teeth, and offered him a cigarette. Ludwig looked at him, dumbly, and shook his head. The soldier wandered off. Ludwig could hear him humming. Desensitized. All of them. They had been trained this way.
He had not.
His uniform felt too tight. Hot.
Sounds all around. The whir of tanks, the pops of guns, the chatter of soldiers, the roar of the flames. Something else.
Screaming.
He tried to keep his chin up high, as he walked on without destination. He feet seemed to be leading him in circles. His cap suddenly slipped from his fingers and to the ground. Didn't think to pick it back up.
Gunshots from within the trees that stood on the other side. Tanks.
He started pacing this way and that, in a last ditch attempt to keep his stomach still. He was starting to lose composure.
Awful shrieking. A horrible smell. Fires within the trees and brush on the other end.
Someone caught fire, and when he couldn't put out the flames, he threw himself down in front of a soldier and shouted, pleading and crying. Ludwig didn't understand the screeches above the wind, and he was glad. He got the gist of it though.
Oh, god, please shoot me, please shoot me, I'm burning, please don't let me burn, shoot me, shoot me, shoot me now, oh god, shoot me—
A single shot. The man fell. The only mercy Ludwig had seen today. To be shot quickly instead of being left to burn to death.
His hands were shaking. Trembling. He was trembling. And suddenly he could feel it. It came out of nowhere. It had been so long since he had had one, but he wouldn't ever forget the way it felt. He could forget many things out here, so many things, but not that.
A panic attack.
He tried to fight it. He dug his heels into the muddy ground in a pitiful attempt to stop the tremble. It just got stronger. He shook his head to clear it. The headache intensified.
The trees were swaying to and fro, spurned on by the wind created by the great flames that lurched up above the horizon, swirling and dancing in the darkening skies. Ash floated down. It dusted his shoulders.
A pain in his chest. A horrible rush of fear.
Anxiety.
He looked around, helplessly, as the edges of his vision started blurring. Where was Ivan? Where was Toris? Needed someone, because the attack was coming, and they scared him. The first time he had ever had one had been an exceedingly traumatic event, and he had been certain then, seventeen and otherwise healthy, that he had been dying. He had thought he was having some kind of heart-attack, or a complete nervous breakdown.
He wouldn't ever forget that awful feeling. The way it all came creeping up on him. The way it couldn't be stopped. No stopping it. And he could feel it coming now.
Too cold all of a sudden. Claustrophobia. The air was growing thin. That awful screaming. The smoke turned an already dark evening even darker, and it may as well have been midnight for the way it looked. Lit up only by fire.
Somewhere, he couldn't see where, a baby was crying.
An endless, agonized moaning from within the brush.
The air was ever thinning. Like he was up in space. He started pacing again, relentlessly.
The tanks gleamed in the firelight. The roof of a burning house suddenly collapsed down from above, blocking any possible escapes.
The baby stopped crying.
He reached up to tug irritably at his collar that suddenly felt far too tight, and his cheeks were flushed now with a great rush of heat that went all the way down to his neck. He startled to frantically undo his tie, because it was getting harder to breathe.
Smoke all the way up to the stars. Gunfire, quick and frequent, all around. The sound of the tanks barreling straight over any and all obstacles.
He started sweating, despite the cold air.
The fire was bright. Red. Orange glows all around.
Oh, god.
Oh god, oh no, it was coming up, he could feel it. No, no, no.
Panic.
Embers floating.
He staggered when he shook his head to clear it; dizziness. He breathed far too quickly, as air become harder to find. A sudden rush of nausea. He lost sense of time and place. Static.
Into this wild abyss the wary fiend—
His eyes hurt. His fingers started to tingle at the tips. He turned his gaze back and forth across the vast forest. The movements were blurry. Vague. He felt far away. Distant. Floating into space. His teeth clenched suddenly, in an effort to keep from dissolving into hyperventilation.
Shadows played all around as the flames danced. The wind got stronger.
He couldn't think. Time slowed.
—Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while—
A loud commotion at his side.
He looked over; everything seemed bland, and far away. Hardly any color. Like he was looking through marbled glass.
A young man was fleeing the flames, bullets falling all around his feet, and he ducked and dodged this way and that, crossing the field and running into the trees and winding into the trunks. But he ran into the wrong side of the forest. He ran into Ludwig's side. Ludwig watched, frozen in place, knowing damn well that soldiers were waiting within. He had positioned them there.
Gunshots. A dull, pained groan. A thud.
Silence.
Slower and slower and slower. Time got slower.
His feet were numb. His collar was suffocating him. He tugged at it, only to realize that it was completely unbuttoned, all the way down to below his collarbone.
—Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith—
A strange, strangled noise at his other side.
He looked.
In the threshold of a burning house stood an old woman, her wrinkled hands cupping her face as she screamed, staring up at everything she owned in the world going up in flames. Shrieking. Heart-broken. She tried to go back in, in some foolish attempt to save personal belongings. She was right there. Right there in front of him. He could have gone to her. He tried to move forward, to grab her and pull her back.
But he couldn't move. He couldn't seem to breathe. He could barely see. He stayed still. His feet were stuck in the mud. She went back in, shielding her face with her hands. And he stood there in dumb, dazed stillness, staring at the doorframe for what felt like hours.
Eternity.
She didn't come back out.
He looked back, straight ahead, and felt the tremble growing ever stronger. Cold sweat dripped down his neck.
A sense of horrible, inescapable finality.
Finality.
—He had to cross.
The river to hell. He had tried to cross. He had given it everything he possessed. Every ounce of it. He tried so hard. But his chest just kept getting tighter and tighter.
A movement close by startled him. He looked around. A whisper, close by.
It took a while for his lethargic mind to comprehend.
The sky was dark.
He looked down. A student had fallen right before him, shot, and was laying there on her back, staring up at him as she attempted to reach up and grab his pant-leg. She was whispering to him. He opened his mouth. She was staring at him.
Nothing came out.
And he stood there, thinking about what to do, but coming up with nothing, and as her fingers tugged at his pants and as she spit up blood, he just stood there. He didn't move. Couldn't find his feet. Their eyes suddenly met. Her eyes were blue, too. They stared at each other. She tried to smile, as though his silence was somehow hopeful. That maybe he would help her. Spare her. Declare her a prisoner, and keep her alive by doing so.
Help me.
Her teeth were stained red. She had pretty hair. A tug on his pants. She opened her mouth to speak.
Bang.
A great burst of thunder.
She lurched upward, gave a great gasp, and fell still. Blood soaked her dirty shirt, and drops of it had splattered on his legs. Her hand fell from his pants.
And immediately, Ludwig looked down at his own hands, terrified that he would see a smoking gun there within them, that maybe he had taken his gun out of its holster and pointed it at her and fired it without even realizing that he was moving at all. He looked down. His hands were empty. But they were shaking.
He looked back up. A familiar face stood there beside of him, placing a gun back into his coat.
A look of worry.
"Hey. Are you alright?"
The words were garbled. Distant. He didn't comprehend. But he knew that voice. Ivan. Ivan had come back. He met Ivan's eyes, and he tried to speak, but it was too late. Too late. The loud gunshot in his ear had done him in. It was coming. Time went from a slow, endless lurch, to a complete halt. Time stopped. And that was it. The beginning of the end.
It started.
He reached up to grab at his collar when all air stopped. He couldn't breathe. He fell backwards onto the ground. The world closed in.
Panic.
No more pills.
He fell back into the dirt, clutching helplessly at the front of his shirt. No air. Nothing. Everything went dark. Fumbling around in an attempt to stand, he only wound up on his knees, fingers gripping mud as he tried in vain to breathe. His lungs were empty. Nothing.
Ivan was on top of him in an instant, those fingers of steel grabbing either wrist and yanking him backwards with fervor.
The panic intensified tenfold.
Oh, oh god, he'd messed everything up so bad this time, he'd gotten it all wrong, he'd been far too confident, too eager to please, too goddamn stupid, and oh, Ivan was going to be so disappointed. So angry. He had let Ivan down. So long now he had taken comfort in Ivan's hands, but not now. Feeling Ivan's hands upon him only made the attack intensify. Because Ivan was going to fuck him over good, he knew it, because Ivan had trusted him with this, Ivan had let him do this all on his own, and he had ruined it. He had done nothing. He had stood there, immobile.
Frozen.
Ivan was going to throttle the life out of him.
In a blind, breathless panic, he tried to flee from Ivan's arms as they wrapped around his chest, in the flight response brought on by the bursts of adrenaline in his veins.
He had to get away.
Ivan held fast. He tried to pull free, but he just couldn't breathe, and everything was getting so far away, and Ivan was too strong. He couldn't escape. He was stuck. Ivan was going to raise up his fist any minute now, he knew it, and strike him across the face and shake him and say, 'What the hell is wrong with you?'
There was nothing he could do about it. Helpless. Overpowered. Overwhelmed.
Sick. No air.
He waited, as time stood still. Darkness creeping steadily into his vision.
Waiting.
But Ivan didn't yank him backwards and toss him into the mud with spite. Ivan didn't whirl him around and strike him across the face to get him to snap out of it. Ivan did not grab his shoulders and shake him. No curses, no slaps, no angry chiding, no foul looks or merciless grips. No disappointed headshake. No sigh of exasperation. No muttered reprimands.
Rather, as his vision started to bleed black and the sounds around him became all the more distant and hollow, there was a warm, very gentle hand upon his back, sliding up and down in slow, soothing motions. Up and down. Strokes of warmth, felt from even beneath the thick fabric of his uniform. Another hand was upon his chest, holding him upright and the only thing keeping him from collapsing down onto the ground. Fingers raising up and digging gingerly under his collar and kneading skin. First his neck, and then his collarbone, and then above his heart. Fluid, circular motions. A nose pressing into his hair. Lips brushing his ear.
No air.
Whooshing in his ears. Blood pounding in his temples. A stinging, aching throb behind his eyes. A strange, unsettling sense of dry-drowning, as he gasped for air and couldn't seem to find any. Would pass out soon, from lack of oxygen.
The hand that was stroking his back suddenly began to thump, as if trying to rid him of a bad cough.
Beyond the clouds of daze and slow-motion, a sound began to break through. Words. A soft, gentle crooning. A familiar voice.
"...alright. Come on, you can do it. Calm down. It's alright."
Ivan's voice. Words of comfort and reassurance.
He gasped for air.
Nothing.
"It's okay. Here, here, I'm here. Come back."
His chest clenched. It wouldn't open.
"Hush. Look up, look up. Look at me."
Hands on his face. A gentle shake. The dark started to fade. He came back from the universe. In the atmosphere, hovering above consciousness.
Cold. A smell of metal.
Ivan's hand came up and ran through his hair, as the other held his head up by his collar.
"Look at me."
He tried, but he couldn't focus. Air still wouldn't come. Couldn't see straight. Unconsciousness hung over him.
He was lowered onto the cold, wet ground. Ivan's hands were on top of his chest, pushing down. Up. Down. Dazed and lost and feeling so far away, like he was watching everything happening as a spectator, he turned his head to the side as Ivan's continued to thump away at his chest.
He was in the mud. Blades of dead winter grass poked up. There beside of him, staring at him, was the student. She didn't move. Her fixed eyes just stared at him.
"Come back."
She was so young. In the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Wake up."
He reached out, with a shaking, pale hand, and groped forward in an attempt to close her eyes. He couldn't reach her.
"Look at me."
Ivan had shot her in the chest. It occurred to him, amidst the surreal thoughts and dreaminess, that Ivan always aimed for the heart. He never shot anyone in the head. Always in the heart. A romantic, perhaps, until the very end.
She stared at him. A sharp pain in his chest. He could swear, for a horrible, frightening moment, that her lips moved. A whisper.
Murderer.
"Come back."
He'd killed them all, every single one of them, and he could still see those embers drifting around in the sky, the awful smell of blood and gunpowder and a horrible kind of sweetness that was burning flesh, and they had never stood a chance, not from the moment that that marker had been placed in his hands—
How could you? You're so stupid!
—and it was too late to change any of it. They were all dead. Dead. The whole tiny little village. They were gone and nothing could bring them back, and oh Christ, there was nothing he could do to wash this blood from his hands, and he had stepped too far into the waters to turn back. He had to cross. He had to. Dark waters. No going back. He couldn't ever go back.
Ivan was waiting on the other side.
Beyond the horrible scents of war, something else. Ivan's cologne. Warm.
Hands on his face.
"Look at me."
Don't look, don't look, don't look—
It happened.
The attack released its grip upon his chest, his lungs expanded, and he took his first gasp of air. It hit him hard, and it hurt, at first, to feel the air flowing in after there hadn't been any for so long. He bolted upright at the waist, gulping in air as fast as he could, panting and coughing and shivering, and he fell into another daze when the hyperventilation started.
The end. The hyperventilation was the last phase. If he could ride it out without slipping into unconsciousness...
Just a little more.
That soothing voice kept murmuring away in his ear, like a brook. The dark was receding, as oxygen returned to his deprived body. Hands upon him. Sounds came rushing in with far too much clarity. It hurt his head, and felt terribly surreal, to have control of his hearing long before his vision.
Ivan's whispers were comforting.
He tried to find Ivan's hands, groping blindly, and when he felt them, he grabbed a hold of Ivan's wrists for dear life, gripping as tightly as he could. Ivan's voice got louder, as though he were suddenly encouraged and maybe relieved.
"That's it! There you are!" A strange, almost breathless laugh. A strained voice. "I thought I'd lost you."
The fog started to thin. Time was ever quickening. Things started to sharpen. Focus. Colors bled back in. And then he could see. Really see.
Ivan.
The first thing he saw was Ivan. A beautiful sight. Ivan was staring at him, with that same look of alarm that had been on his face so long ago, when he had taken his temperature and realized how low it was. The same look. Ivan was worried. Eyes wide and brow low and breathing through his mouth, Ivan shook him again, and tried to catch his wandering gaze.
"Look here. Here I am. Come on. Look at me."
He tried to focus.
Finally, he managed to settle, and the feeling of drifting in space subsided. He came back to earth. He saw Ivan. Really saw him. And he knew, then, that Ivan was not angry.
"I'm sorry," came the immediate whisper, as soon as he found himself really looking back at Ivan and comprehending him, and warm hands grabbed up his face. Ivan looked so alarmed, and so concerned. A regretful mutter. "It was too soon. I brought you out too soon. I should have let you work up to it. I'm sorry, Ludwig."
Sorry? Ivan never said 'Sorry'. Ivan did not make mistakes.
Thumbs ran over his cheeks. Ivan was trying to bring him back from the dark. He was here. Everything was too loud. Too bright.
His head was on fire.
Suddenly, the hands on his face were gone, and Ivan pulled himself up to his feet. And as soon as Ivan had reached down and grabbed him by the arm, yanking him up to his feet, he could feel something else creeping up upon. Mortification. Embarrassment. He had let Ivan down. Again. By losing control of himself.
His chest hurt as Ivan led him along, and the entire time he just stared at the ground, far too ashamed to raise up his eyes and look around. He could have died.
The sound of a door, and then warmth. Ivan shoved him into a soft seat. He finally looked up. Ivan had put him back in the car.
He looked down at himself, and felt his shame intensify; his sleek uniform was completely covered in mud. Stained on the front and back from where he had fallen, caked with earth and clay and grass-stains. Ivan settled in next to him, as he laid back on the seat, and didn't seem concerned by the dirt. Ludwig couldn't meet Ivan's gaze, as bad as he felt, and ducked his head away, closing his eyes.
Ivan leaned down above him, and placed a hand above his heart.
"Can you breathe?"
He nodded, once.
A silence.
Then Ivan's forehead was suddenly pressing into his own, Ludwig squinted his eyes shut, and he could have just cried. He was so disappointed in himself.
"I'm sorry, Ludwig. I shouldn't have brought you so soon. I should have known better. You've never been around any of this. You just look so right in the uniform that I forget sometimes that you're really just a civilian. I didn't mean for this to happen. Please don't be angry with me."
Angry? He had no reason to be angry. It should have been Ivan who was angry. He had tried so hard to keep it together. He had failed.
"Wait here. I'll come back."
He looked up when Ivan pulled away, and he could see that Toris had come now too, standing outside the car and looking in with a face full of worry.
Ludwig tried to sit up, saying, weakly, "I can go, too. I can try again."
Ivan's pushed him back down.
"Try what? You did your part. That wasn't anything for you. That was my half. You did everything you were supposed to do."
Maybe so, but he shouldn't have just stood there, inert in the field. He should have taken action. He should have striven to prove himself. He had broken down. He had let Ivan down, maybe not by failing his mission, but by letting his nerves fail in an environment that had still been hostile.
"Let me go with you."
Ivan only shook his head, look stern and sharp, and Ludwig knew it was time to be quiet.
Ivan turned his head, and called, "Toris!"
Toris straightened up in attention.
"Finish up here."
"Yes."
"Make sure everything's done. Take the left. I'll go right."
"Yes."
The warmth of Ivan was gone, as he pulled himself out of the car. A last look at Ludwig. "Try to sleep. I'll be back soon. It's almost done." And with that, Ivan left, disappearing back into the misty smoke.
Toris lingered. Another voice floating into his ears.
"Ludwig? Hey."
He looked up, blearily. Toris was leaning in, one knee resting down on the seat as he hovered over Ludwig with attentive eyes.
"Hey. You feelin' alright?"
He nodded.
Toris didn't exactly seem sold, and reached out, brushing fingers in his disheveled hair, and then resting his hand upon Ludwig's forehead.
"...you're freezing. Sure you're alright? Can you breathe okay?"
"I'm alright," he said, and his voice felt weak and rough and tired.
Irritated.
Toris just shook his head to himself, and muttered, "You should never have come out here."
He was tired. He wanted to go to sleep.
Barely comprehending Toris' words as the exhaustion came upon him like a wave, he could only reach up and grab a fistful of Toris' sleeve, whispering, weakly, "I was so sure that I could do it. I thought I could do it. I choked."
"Don't worry about it," Toris said, a bit sternly, as he ran his hand across Ludwig's forehead to clear it of the cold sweat. "You did your part. You shoulda stayed out there by the trees where you were supposed to, you idiot. Why did you come out? You would have been fine if you had stayed where you were supposed to. Why can't you ever listen? Ah, hell. Well. It's too late, I guess."
Ludwig felt himself smiling, as he looked up at Toris from behind the veil.
"I tried to be like you," he murmured, blearily, and he could see Toris' look of surprise.
"Like me?"
He nodded.
"You're brave, you know. I tried to stand out there, like I saw you doing. I thought I could jump in, like you do. I try so hard to be like you. But I just..."
Toris shook his head. A deep whisper.
"You don't wanna be like me, Ludwig."
He did, though, but was too damn tired to talk more about it, and shut his eyes.
A sigh above him, and Toris patted the side of Ludwig's head, gently, letting his palm linger there in what could have very well been hard Toris' version of hugging, and there was another low whisper that reached Ludwig right before he fell into unconsciousness. Fingers, suddenly running through his hair.
"What do you know, you big oaf? Please don't ever be like me. I like Ludwig. I want you to stay Ludwig. I... I would rather be like you."
With that, Toris suddenly bolted out of the car, as if embarrassed, and Ludwig laid his head down, and went straight out.
But even as he slept...
He could still smell it. Hear it. See it. Fire. Ash and embers in the air. He felt himself kicking restlessly in sleep. Trying to get away from that girl, who stared at him from the ground.
Space and time were lost.
He was vaguely aware of the roaring of tanks, as they started moving again.
He could have slept so much longer, but there were suddenly hands upon him, and he was lifted up and repositioned. For a minute, he was too tired to open his eyes. The car lurched. The tires cut through the mud.
He came back to himself a while later, and when he finally opened his eyes, there was no more fire. Just darkness, and Ivan beside of him. He was held up in Ivan's arms. No more screaming. Just silence, and the feeling of Ivan's chest rising and falling as he breathed.
The car was back on the road. They were going back to the station. Other cars were behind them on the road. Headlights shone through the night. The ride back was eerily quiet. Or maybe it was as noisy as the ride there had been, only that he was too dumb and dazed to hear any outside commotions.
Breathing hurt. His chest ached.
"Awake?"
He nodded, wearily, and sat up straight. The movement hurt.
"Good."
Ivan leaned in to him, and finally chided him a little. But it wasn't for what he expected.
Arm around his shoulders pulling him in, Ivan looked over with a very stern brow and said, lowly, "Why didn't you tell me, huh?"
Ludwig could only look up, dazed and far too comfortable in Ivan's arms.
"Tell you about what?"
Ivan shook him a little. "About what—about that! Why didn't you tell me you got... How do you say it?"
Oh, right. How embarrassing.
"Panic attacks."
A stern look.
"If you had told me, I would have gone about this all differently."
Feeling a little mortified and a little defensive, Ludwig managed to grumble, "It hasn't happened in a long time."
Ivan's voice turned sharp. Dangerous.
"I wasn't asking for excuses. I didn't ask when you had the last one. I asked why you didn't tell me. You should have told me."
There it was. That old anxiety. Just a second of hearing Ivan speak in that voice was enough to make him feel like he was up in that room all over again. The darkness of some closet.
"...sorry."
He sat there, hands folded in his lap and staring down as his heart started speeding up, and there was a short silence in which he could hear, with painful clarity, the slamming of a door in the distance. Damn. He always messed something up, one way or another.
Ivan was quiet, brooding, brow furrowed and lips pursed as he stared ahead, no doubt rethinking the entire thing and wondering what he could have done differently.
Finally, Ludwig found his voice, and said, again, "Sorry. I should have said something."
Ivan glanced over at him, arms crossed above his chest.
"Anything else I should know about? Hm? Heart problems? Anemia? Bad ankles?"
Bad ankles?
He looked over, dumbly. Ivan's brow had come up, and his lips were twitching. The anger was gone.
'Sorry' was such a good way to prevent disasters. A good survival skill.
Ludwig couldn't help it, as Ivan started to smile; he laughed. Despite it all. Maybe it should have horrified him, above all else, that was still able to laugh after the atrocities he had just witnessed. But somehow...
Now that he was out of the grip of the attack, it didn't really bother him so much. Bad things happened sometimes. The world wasn't right. It never would be. It wasn't his fault.
Ivan seemed to be put off guard a little by his laughter, a little alarmed maybe, and pulled him into a complete embrace.
"I was really worried about you."
With that, with the comfort of Ivan and the continual assuaging of his guilt, Ludwig felt better.
"Don't be," he said, and he really meant it.
Outside, the fields were giving way to houses, stacked up on hills and built with cheap materials, one on top of the other, old and dilapidated and falling apart. But at least they weren't on fire.
Kyiv was back.
No one here even knew what had happened out there.
Maybe they saw the smoke rising up against the night sky, but they couldn't have known exactly what had caused it. No one would ever know that he had had something to do with that. Maybe out here, no one really even cared. Maybe they saw this kind of thing so frequently that it just didn't bother them anymore. Desensitized. Not just the soldiers.
He wondered if he'd be that way too, after seeing it so many times. He had choked this time, but already, away from the scene, he was able to push it all from his mind. The next time would be a little easier, and then the time after that, and the time after that. And then one time it would happen, and he wouldn't even flinch.
Like Toris.
The lights of Kyiv hazed out the stars above, and the smoke of the tiny village was no longer visible. That was for the best. Like it never happened.
They pulled to a stop, in front of the train station. Everything was loud. Even this late. As soon as they stepped out, back into the cold air, Ivan came around and grabbed him by the sleeve, a bundle under his other arm. Where had that come from?
"Come here."
He was tugged along, back towards the end of the station, and shoved rather unceremoniously into what might have been a bathroom.
"Here," Ivan said, as he shoved the bundle into his arm, "Go change. You can't walk around here like that. People will wonder."
He looked down at himself, and remembered that his uniform was covered in mud from where he had collapsed. Dots of blood on his pants.
"Right."
He fell back into a stall, and shed his dirty uniform with a sense of great relief. The clothes Ivan had given him were familiar. The uniform he'd worn back at the ball. That standard color of olive. A field uniform. Well, it may not have been as glossy, but at least it was clean. And when he pulled it on, it was like nothing had ever happened.
He came out, the dirty uniform folded neatly under his arm, and when he looked at himself in the mirror, he was surprised, more than anything else. He had expected to look pale, wan, tired and scared and maybe exhausted. But he didn't. He looked fine.
Just fine.
No one would ever have looked at him and guessed that he had just been struggling for breath in the middle of a panic attack only hours earlier. No circles under his eyes. Still pale, but no longer wan. He just looked ready to go.
His hair was a little dirty, though.
He reached down and turned on the faucet above the sink, and bent over, sticking his head beneath the cold water and dousing it completely, washing it free of the dirt as best he could. The freezing water was a little refreshing, after all of it. He was already feeling better. By tomorrow, this whole thing would be a memory.
Turning the water off, he shook his wet hair and straightened back up, wiping off his face with his sleeve. When he looked in the mirror again, when he smoothed back his damp hair, he looked even better than he felt. He looked fine. Time to go. All business again.
Life went on.
No one stopped for these kinds of things. He just had to stop worrying so much about it all. He couldn't change anything that happened. He didn't understand why he had to try and justify it so frequently, why he had to keep saying it over and over and over again, why he had to try so hard to convince himself. What good would worrying about it do? It wouldn't undo anything that had been done. It wasn't his fault. He had just done what he was told. Following orders.
Ha. Someone had told him once, 'the worst crimes in the history of humanity were committed by men who were just following orders.'
What's your name?
Well, whoever it had been obviously didn't understand the way the world worked. Once you were in the chain of command, what else could you do? Orders were orders. A job. People just tried to do their jobs. Not the fault of a single person. It was just the way the world was.
A knock on the door.
"Ready?"
He started out of his stillness, finished fixing his hair, and went to the door. When he opened it, Ivan was leaning there in the frame, looking a little tired. The day was catching up with him.
"Ready?" he asked again, as he looked up and down, and Ludwig nodded. "You look nice in that color," Ivan added, as they stepped back out into the station, and Ludwig only shrugged a shoulder.
"I like the other one better."
"I guessed so."
They waited on the platform, and then the doors opened. They stepped on, and walked through the nearly empty passage. Back on the train. The compartment door slid shut, Ivan settled down beside of him, and it was like every other time.
Almost.
This was the first time riding a train after very nearly living up to that word that was so often whispered to him at night.
Murderer.
He hadn't pulled the trigger this time. Maybe next time.
When the train started moving, beginning its journey back to Moscow, Ivan looked over at him, and said, quietly, "I spoke to the men you led."
He only managed a very cool, "Oh?"
Even though his veins were hammering with adrenaline.
But his fears of being belittled did not come to be, and Ivan's silvery voice was all pride when he continued, "They said you were an honor to follow."
His heart soared. Just what he needed to hear.
Ivan's smile turned into a leer.
"They did say that they were a little scared of you, though, because you walked off into the bullets and didn't try to take cover. They say you stayed right up front. They called you a crazy son of a bitch."
That had been shock and daze. Not bravery and fearlessness. But, hell. Ivan didn't need to know that. Assuming that he didn't already. So he stayed silent, and just scoffed as he turned his eyes to the window.
Ivan's next words made it all worth it. All of it.
"I'm proud of you."
All he had wanted.
He kept his face turned towards the window so Ivan would not see his smile. The pain in his chest, the awful experience of a panic attack, the blood on his pants. Worth it.
An arm was over his shoulder.
"Go to sleep. We'll be there before you know it."
He obeyed, as Ivan rested his head down upon his shoulder and was out like a light. He followed not long after.
He passed in and out of sleep as the train lurched.
By the time Moscow was approaching again, in the pale light of the next morning, the clenching in his chest was gone. He felt better. The panic attack was a mere memory.
And with clear breathing and a clear head came a thought that made him furrow his brow and glance over at Ivan halfheartedly.
Twice now, that he was unable to keep composure when Ivan had given him a chance to do so. He hadn't been able to shoot Pavlov. He hadn't been able to endure the burning field. Once had been bad enough. Twice was too much.
No words that Ivan gave would erase the mortification of knowing he had been seen in such a vulnerable state.
When the train pulled in, Ivan woke up and turned to him, arm still around his shoulder and eyes heavy, and asked, with a gentle shake, "What do you want to do? Should we just go straight home, or do you want to spend the night and leave tomorrow? How do you feel?"
A lurch of disappointment.
"I thought we were staying two weeks?"
Ivan shifted a bit, and turned to him a concerned eye.
"I don't want you getting sick."
Damn. He wasn't ready to go.
"I'm okay," he said, maybe too quickly, and the immediate question was obvious. "Do we have to go?"
Ivan raised a brow, seemed in thought, and then he exhaled a very heavy sigh, slumped in the seat, long legs splayed out in front of him, and buried his face in his hands. A muffled mutter in Russian.
Ludwig waited.
A humorless laugh, and Ivan's palms lowered just enough to uncover his eyes as he looked over at Ludwig. A long, tired stare, and then Ivan sighed again and rubbed at his eyes, saying, gruffly, "Oh, alright. I guess we can stay for a little while. I should have known that you'd want to look around a little. Pfft—why can't I say no to a pretty face?"
Ludwig smiled, and with that rush of adoration in his chest, the night was entirely forgotten.
The train stopped. Like before, Ivan slid the screen, and ushered him through. Outside, chaos. Masses.
When they stepped out of the train, Ludwig straightened up and tidied his uniform without being told to, and when they started walking through the crowd, Ivan leaned in to him and whispered, "You know, I didn't notice it earlier. That uniform's starting to get a little tight. I think it's time for a new one."
He looked down, and could see that maybe Ivan was right. The buttons across the chest were a little stressed. Ivan seemed pleased.
"I guess I should have fed you a little less, until we got back."
Narrowing his eyes a little, as he kept his chin up and tried to intimidate passersby, Ludwig muttered back, "Are you trying to say I'm getting fat?"
"Not at all," Ivan said, primly.
"Good."
Ivan was just teasing him, to keep him from thinking too much about last night.
A fresh start. He would try again tomorrow.
It was a mark, perhaps, of the darkness of this land that he could ever put such sights behind him. Or maybe that was the darkness within himself. Things he had never known were there at all.
Ivan had said so, hadn't he?
We're the same, you and I.
The same.
The crowds parted for them as best they could, and the streets were drawing near. They had nearly reached the end of the station when it happened.
A burst of silver in the pale sun.
Like a beacon.
Ludwig turned, instinctively, but there was only the massive crowd that poured into the train station, so many people, and no matter how hard he looked, he could not see that silver glow again against the drab backdrop. He looked over this way and that. A horrible feeling within his chest. An odd exhilaration. He felt himself popping up on his toes as he scanned the vast crowds. His heart was racing all of a sudden, and he didn't know why. He didn't know why he was looking, and he didn't know for what.
His eyes were wide, he was breathing through his mouth, all senses suddenly heightened. As if that old survival instinct had kicked back into high gear and was trying to drive him towards something.
His veins coursed with the fire of adrenaline, and suddenly he could swear that he saw something out there in that endless crowd, something familiar and comforting, something he had lost long ago, and suddenly everything was hazy, and his chest ached.
Another burst of silver, and above the loud voices, an even louder one.
Oh—
A rush of absolute elation that he had not felt in so long. He couldn't place it. Suddenly, he was sick with adrenaline. He felt himself take a step back towards the crowd. Something was drawing him in. An invisible hand, trying to drag him back.
But suddenly a voice cut through the haze.
"What's wrong?"
He looked over his shoulder, to see Ivan leaning in, looking concerned.
"You feel alright?"
He broke Ivan's gaze, as excited as he felt, and turned his eyes back to the crowd. He didn't understand why. He just knew there was something here that he should look for. He didn't know what. A siren's call. Enough to take his attention from Ivan as he tried once more to step into the crowd.
Ivan tugged him back.
"Let's go."
Go? No, no, no, no, he couldn't go, there was something here, he knew it, something that his mind told him to go looking for.
But Ivan was strong, and he fell back.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Ivan reached out and grabbed his chin, and forced him to look up. "What?"
Ludwig shook his head, as best he could for Ivan's iron grip, and breathed, "I thought I saw something."
Ivan's brow lowered in concern. "What did you see?"
Ivan's other hand came up and fell on his forehead. As if he was sick. No. He wasn't sick. He tried to break free of Ivan, too elated and breathless to feel fear, trying so hard to walk off into the crowd and after that voice. Ivan just wouldn't let him go, wrenching him still.
"Are you seeing things?"
...what? Seeing things? He opened his mouth, and found no answer. Because, well...
He had seen things before, hadn't he?
That relentless racing of his heart and sudden adrenaline did make him feel slightly ill, and suddenly there was a cold sweat on his forehead, and maybe he was just seeing things. Just hallucinating again. He had before. Maybe he was now. That silver flash was probably all in his head. That something. Maybe it wasn't real.
But oh Christ in heaven, something inside was screeching at him to turn around and look. Just look. He tried, he did, but he couldn't, for Ivan's grip.
Suddenly, Ivan's hand swept back his bangs, and he said, worriedly, "Maybe we should go home. I'm worried about you."
And those words somehow cut through the rush.
Ivan's eyes raised up, and he scanned the crowd.
"What did you see? There's nothing there. Do you want to go home?"
Home?
Damn. He felt sick. He couldn't go home. He had promised himself that he would redeem his failure. Couldn't go home yet, not yet.
He shook his head, and tried to smile.
"No, I'm fine. It's alright. Let's just go."
Ivan's grip released.
And even though his heart ached, Ludwig forced himself to walk on. No matter how much the voice inside begged and begged, he couldn't turn around. He was just seeing things. It wasn't real. Just a false alarm. So why did it still hurt so much, to not be able to go back and seek that which was calling him?
He could swear that he had seen something.
In the end, obedience won out. Despite the nagging tug, despite the voice screeching in his mind, despite the strange feeling in his chest and the awful aching in his heart, he obeyed. He did not turn his head. Why bother? Ivan had said so :
Nothing there.
The station ended, and they stepped into the street. He lingered there, at the entrance.
Oh. God.
He longed to turn.
Don't look, don't look, don't look —
He didn't. He raised his chin, and took a step. There were no more bursts of light. He walked on.
He didn't look back.
Nothing there
The worst days of his life.
Endless fog. Hopelessness. No light. Just darkness.
So many days driving in the middle of nowhere, staying on the road for only a few hours and spending the rest huddled up in a cold car and praying, praying that no one would find them.
Dismal thoughts.
When Gilbert had sat there in the car, head rested against the glass and moping, and had looked up and seen the first buildings of Moscow, he had taken a hand and covered his mouth to stifle the awful rise of nausea. The city he feared, more than anything else on earth. He had go into the heart of it.
Eduard had looked over at him, then, and tried to smile.
'You okay?'
He shook his head, and looked in the backseat.
Ludwig had sat there, hands folded neatly in his lap as he stared at Gilbert with an alarmingly intense gaze.
Ludwig had smiled. 'Almost there!'
Gilbert had turned back around, took a great breath, and forced his hands steady. Moscow just got closer and closer. And yet somehow, Ludwig didn't feel any closer.
The first day in Moscow had been a complete waste of time, as he had roamed irritably through the streets, not even knowing what he was looking for. Eduard had humored him, and walked at his side even though he must have thought that Gilbert was insane.
Nothing.
The second day, he had dragged Eduard into libraries and public records buildings, forcing him to sift through years and years for anything at all.
Nothing.
The third day, sick of sleeping in the car, Eduard had found a cheap motel, and Gilbert had spent the day inside, curled on the bed and crying as Ludwig had sat there beside of him, chiding him for being so hard-headed.
He still hadn't told Eduard who he was looking for. Eduard had to have been frustrated, but didn't show it.
The fourth day, he had wandered the streets again, hoping in some stupid way that he would just bump into Ludwig on the street. Stupid. Childish. It hadn't happened.
Nothing.
The fifth day began with a bad start.
He had so many nightmares. When he woke up, Ludwig was gone. Where had he gone? He had set out in a foul mood, a quiet Eduard walking dutifully beside of him. Today, he had decided to go into the train station. It had worked once before.
But now, as he stood here...
He felt overwhelmed. Lost. Such a huge station, people all around, and yet he felt so damn alone. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know who to ask or what to ask or how. Eduard followed behind him as he stalked this way and that, pushing through the crowd and looking over people and feeling so helpless.
He wanted to cry again.
The morning dragged on. There was nothing. He just wanted to see Ludwig. In foolish desperation, he started passing by every line of passengers getting on and off trains, as if by some miracle Ludwig would be one of them. He never was.
Eduard stood there, hands in his pockets, and looked agitated. Exasperated. Tired. Irritable. Angry.
"When are you gonna knock it off and ask for help?"
Gilbert sent him a halfhearted glare, and ignored him. He was so scared of telling Eduard who he was looking for, and why. Eduard might run.
He searched the station for hours. Hours. Miserable hours.
Nothing.
Eduard didn't say another word, and let him do as he pleased.
He roamed, restlessly. Endlessly. The same thing, over and over and over again. Ludwig just wasn't here. He had finally fallen to a complete halt, exhausted and tired and so disheartened, and he had turned to Eduard, ready to call it quits for another day. He just couldn't take anymore of this. He wanted it all to be over.
It just dragged on.
He opened his mouth, and meant to speak. But something distracted him.
A light.
A feeling of familiarity as a group of passengers passed.
He thought he saw, in the lights of the station, a gleam of pale hair catching fire. He stopped in his tracks, and felt a horrible rush of something that nearly knocked him right off his feet. He whirled around, and tried to see it again.
Reaching out with both arms, Gilbert tried to shove his way through the crowd, trying in desperation to find that which he had lost. He straightened up and tried to look above them, but he couldn't find it. He just saw mothers and children, old men and old women, young girls gawking and giggling at Soviet soldiers that passed, fathers holding babies in their arms.
Everyone and no one.
On no, it had to be here. He had seen it, he could swear to god he had. He had seen Ludwig's hair, lit up bright in the light. He had felt it, in his heart and in his mind. He had seen Ludwig. Somewhere. He knew it. He swore it.
He had lost him.
He raised himself up and cried, over the crowd, "Hey! Ludwig! Are you there?"
Had seen him, he knew it. He turned and tried to push through on the left, and then on the right, and then back again, wandering in circles and jumping up on his toes and trying to see. He couldn't. He couldn't see anything.
He couldn't see Ludwig.
He tried not to burst into tears, and searched the crowd in the same circle. An endless loop of misery. No one there. Nothing. Oh, he could have died for the way he felt. He could have lied down on the pavement and just died. Because it was gone. That sudden hope. That light.
Gone.
He searched for an hour. Nothing. Finally, he was forced to admit defeat. And it was the most horrible feeling he had ever known, because he had felt it. He had felt Ludwig. He could swear that he had been so close...
So close. He had felt it.
He could have sworn—oh god he could have sworn—that he had seen a flash of brilliant white, that familiar old gleam of pale sunlight breaking through Ludwig's hair, lighting up the horrid grey gloom of Moscow like a beacon of salvation.
There was nothing. No matter where he turned his head or how many times he popped up on his toes, he just couldn't catch that spark again.
Nothing.
It hurt to admit. Ludwig wasn't here. He had missed something, somewhere. There was no Ludwig here. For an awful moment, he fell to a halt before a train that was pulling in, and he thought about running forward and jumping in front of it. He thought about it. But a sudden hand on his arm prevented whatever his delirious mind might have done.
He looked back, dumbly.
Not Ludwig. Eduard. He had had enough of this.
"Well," Eduard finally began, and his eyes were locked onto Gilbert's with an intensity that was almost expectant, "It's been long enough! I'm tired of this. Are you ready to tell me who you're looking for? If not, I'm gone. If you won't tell me, then why would I stay?"
Gilbert shifted, reluctantly. He did not want to say that name. What if Eduard fled? Ludwig was gone. Where had Ludwig gone? Ludwig was gone. He didn't want Eduard to go, too. He didn't want to be alone. Not here.
Not out here.
"You can't do this alone," Eduard stated, firmly, and Gilbert knew it was true. "Tell me. You need me. You can't go on alone. You can't."
God in heaven, what could he do? What choice did he have? He couldn't go on alone. He had neither the strength nor the courage. The will. He couldn't. He would die, either of incompetence or by doing it himself.
He couldn't.
He had to say it. No choice.
Finally, he braced himself and clenched his fists at his sides, turning back to watch the train, and when he found himself, he whispered so softly and so lowly that he would be surprised if Eduard could even hear him at all. But he didn't dare raise his voice, because that name could not be spoken aloud, for fear it might summon the devil himself.
"Braginsky," he finally managed, "Ivan Braginsky."
Silence.
He looked back.
A passing of something awful over Eduard's face, and even for the freezing air Gilbert could see the breaking of a cold sweat upon his brow.
That name. He should have known.
Eduard finally moved, after a stunned moment, tucking his hands suddenly in his pockets, and Gilbert knew that it was only to hide their tremble, and then he laughed, weakly. Humorlessly.
"Well!" he said, voice so pale and thin it was barely audible, and Gilbert felt a squirm of unease. "Is that it, then?"
"Yeah," he responded, and Eduard caught his eye again. "That's it."
Darkness.
Eduard looked on the verge of fainting, and yet still he smiled, as though trying to be brave. He imagined that Eduard felt much like he did. Hopeless. Scared. Lost. Overwhelmed. On the edge of the cliff, staring down into the dark sea.
There was a long, strange silence.
And then Eduard looked up at the ceiling of the station, shielding his eyes from the bright lights with his hand.
"Ha."
A strange whisper.
"Well. Never thought I'd hear that name again."