A/N: Time for another dubious chapter title link ahahahaha

3. scars

It is two o'clock in the afternoon in Moscow, on a cold winter day with snow piled across the streets and hanging thickly from the trees, when Ivan finds himself hidden around the corner of a building listening to the conversation Yao has started.

Alfred Jones doesn't know he's here. Alfred Jones thinks he's alone with a fellow ghost.

Ivan runs his fingers over the small metal chips in his pockets, across the groove in the surface that clicks them together and forms an exorcism circle around whatever spirit is unlucky enough to get caught. It's ridiculous, but he's prepared.

"So how long you been kickin' around again?" Alfred's voice rings out, loud and clear and American.

"Oh, I don't know," Yao replies, "couple of decades? Not anything big."

"A couple of decades?! What, so like, you're an old man? How'd you not get caught yet?!"

"I'm just smart about it."

"Jesus Christ, that's insane."

Alfred begins asking if Yao's ever considered learning to turn into a poltergeist, and Ivan steps out from his hiding place and claps the chips together before Alfred has a chance to react - the ghost spins around and a brief look of almost comical surprise crosses his face before it's too late.

Yao salutes him, stepping away from the circle, and Ivan says the little Latin exorcism chant and Alfred's form shatters into hundreds of icy, glowing shards, filling the circle with half-formed images.

Exorcism takes seconds to perform - it's just catching the ghost in the first place that's difficult. There's a reason the ghost chasers are named as such, Ivan likes to think.

He stands back as little memories from Alfred's life fill the circle he made, snapshots of people Alfred knew and places Alfred had been. There's a lot of a young boy with the same face as Alfred, only softer, and a lot of an older man with expensive-looking clothes and very prominent eyebrows. Ivan points to a few of the images and turns to Yao. "Who do you think they are?"

Yao pauses for a moment, before shrugging. "I don't know. Probably Alfred's father, and maybe a brother. He looked too young to have a son that age."

Ivan nods, eyeing the fading pictures of the boy. "Yeah. I wonder why he didn't have any memories of his brother grown-up, though."

"Maybe he died before he grew up."

"Yeah, maybe."

Eventually the memories fade and the circle retreats, leaving only a dull mark in the tiles, and Ivan drops the metal chips back into his pockets. It would be an understatement to say he's surprised they actually managed to exorcise Alfred Jones - the ghost chasers have been after him for months, but today he and Yao just caught him and finished him off in less than five minutes. Yao often goes on about how the ghost chasers would be a much better organisation if they let sensible ghosts into their ranks to help them, but Ivan hasn't considered much before now.

With Yao there, Alfred had let his guard down, just assuming it was a friendly conversation with a ghost like him - and that distraction had allowed Ivan to surprise him before he could get away.

Last night it was mostly a joke, suggesting to exorcise Alfred Jones, but here they are having actually succeeded.

He looks at Yao, who is watching him with a triumphant, expectant sort of stare, and finally gives in. "All right, I agree with you. You're good at this."

"Thank you," Yao replies, "Do you also agree now that the ghost chasers would be much better off using actual ghosts rather than relying on their useless sight?" He rises off the ground to match Ivan's height again and leans in, smiling in a proud way that reflects how much he knows he's right.

"I guess," Ivan says, a little more begrudgingly than before, and he resists the urge to pout as Yao grins. "Although if I took you to the ghost chasers they'd just exorcise you on the spot."

He imagines the scene - a chaser has been keeping a ghost hidden to prevent its exorcism, this is an offence to the order of the ghost chasers - and something inside him lets off a cold spark of something unpleasant.

To the ghost chasers, Yao will have overstayed his welcome by a good forty years already.

Ivan stopped trying to tell Yao this, though, because Yao doesn't care - he is stubborn and never listens. He always acts as if he doesn't care for his existence in the slightest, as if he's too arrogant to even consider the possibility he's in danger from the people Ivan works with, and the sometimes whole situation makes him uncomfortable. He just wishes Yao would be a bit more careful sometimes - he doesn't want to lose Yao like he did General Winter.

With General Winter, he could accept it - because he wasn't attached to him like he is to Yao.

"Do you ever think about your actions or are you just not scared of exorcism?" he asks haltingly, after a pause. Yao floats away slightly, his grin fading. "You do know once you're exorcised from this plane that's it? You can't come back, ever?"

"Of course I know that," Yao replies, and shrugs nonchalantly. Something about his careless demeanour sparks something angry inside Ivan's being. "I'm just not worried about it. I've been here for fifty years and they've never caught me, and besides, I've already died once. There's not really much left to lose."

Something about the way he throws away everything he has right now lights the spark of anger into a hurt, betrayed little flame.

"You don't have much left to lose?" Ivan echoes, frowning, unable to stop himself spitting out words and watching Yao's expression of disinterest shift into surprise, "Do ghosts not have feelings or do I just not matter to you as much as I thought I did?"

"Ivan-" Yao begins, "That's- not what I meant-"

"That's what it sounded like."

"You know I wouldn't say that, I..." Yao looks away, glancing towards the high street at the end of their small road, and sighs, sinking towards the ground slightly. "I meant, I've already died once and I've already lost my family and my livelihood once. That's it."

Ivan stays silent. It's surprising how fast the mood changed, almost as fast as Alfred Jones got ripped from this plane of being.

"Besides, have you ever stopped to consider how unnatural this is?" Yao continues, gesturing between them, "I'm not trying to say I don't want it, but you have to admit it's not exactly normal, not even among people who can see ghosts." He catches Ivan's gaze and locks it there, forcing Ivan to look into his eyes.

Ghost's eyes are strange, Ivan thinks, usually they are blank and ugly and soulless but Yao's are the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. He feels his expression softening and is powerless to stop it.

He does not want to lose Yao, he thinks, so the only thing he's going to do is keep him hidden. The rule doesn't matter as long as nobody knows.

A small, unreadable smile pulls at Yao's lips, and Ivan mirrors the look despite some small part of him wanting to still be angry. "That's never bothered me," he says.

After a thoughtful pause, Yao finally replies, "Yeah, me neither."