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Dmitri awakes.
Sterile white walls meet him when he does, eyes panickedly flicking from side to side. There’s a pain in his side. He was shot. His hand finds his side, fingers searching. He finds clean bandages there, nice ones. Ones that were not used on the field. He had never felt such a material before.
There are wires in his arm, the soft beeping of the machine measuring his heartbeat familiar to his ears. He shuffles into a sitting position with a low groan, rubbing at his eyes.
“You are awake, comrade,” A low voice speaks to him, causing the man to flinch. A man, one much older than Dmitri, sits at his side. The cigarette squeezed carefully between his pointer and thumb is offered out to Dmitri.
“Ah, thank you,” Dmitri mumbles, taking the small stick of nicotine. “…Where am I?” He asks, not yet putting the smoke to his lips.
“You did well, serving the Motherland,” The man responds, “But now you have a new purpose.”
“Where am I?” Dmitri asks again, brows furrowing. He isn’t dead, he can’t be dead. He promised Eva he would be home. He promised her he would marry her.
Plus, not even hell would taunt him with the promising images of hospitals. Of healing.
“You are in a place where your skills can be put to real use, Comrade Junior Lutenaint,” The man explains. “You did good in the military, but,” He tsked, “You can do much more now.” Dmitri shakes his head. This makes no sense, he groans, frustrated.
“Where is Eva?” He asks, moving on. “My… wife,” The word felt funny on his tongue, and wasn’t quite true - they were just engaged. But that did not matter to him. He was pretty much married to her either way. And he was safe. Maybe he’d be able to see her again, hold her again.
“She has been… notified,” The man responds, watching as Dmitri’s gray eyes light up. “Of your death,” And it all comes crashing down. Dmitri’s head spins, and he falls back into the bed.
“But I’m not. I’m not dead,” He argues, feeling his eyes sting.
“You are to her,” The man replies, snatching his cigarette back. “And you are to the Motherland.” The man leans forward, blowing smoke into Dmitri’s face. “Is that not what you wanted?”
No, Dmitri wants to beg. It wasn’t. He wanted to retire from the military, work in Moscow, and come home to his loving wife and kids each night. He used to dream of tucking his children in at bedtime - he craves the domesticity of being awoken by his small child crawling into his and Eva’s bed after a nightmare.
He shakes his head, trying to fight back the tears at the edge of his vision. All at once he was hit with mourning, so much mourning.
He did not try to deny it.
“You have died a hero, Junior Lutenaint,” The man states, standing. “And yet you get to live to save the world. It’s a win-win, is it not?” Dmitri sits in silence, hands clenching. He wants to punch this man. But he can’t get himself to move into action. He can’t get himself to fly into motion, swinging. Beating. The violence he had been trained to use. It slips away. Just like his dreams. “Oh, well. Perhaps you’ll be more accepting later,” The man huffs, voice taunting. He opens the door but turns back before he leaves. “Rest, Comrade. Your new job awaits,” He speaks, before stepping into the hall.
He chokes out a sob after the door shuts, burying his face in his hands. He can’t help it, can’t stop himself as he cries hard enough until he is hiccuping.
The only thing he could get out was the soft call of Eva, Eva, Eva, Eva.
By the time he’s done, there’s a pain in his chest and his nose is stuffy. He leans back, wiping his face as he slowly calms down. He takes deep, heavy breaths in an attempt to curb the ache and burn of the lack of oxygen in his lungs. They are shakey, full of the emotional pain he was feeling.
He just wanted to go home, to feel Eva’s body rested against his. To bury his face in her chest as he held her painfully close. To smell her perfume and feel her soft skin on his. He wanted her fingers in his hair, cooing about him needing a cut. Slowly, he shuffles forward, wrapping his arms around a pillow.
He reawakens to a nightmare, shooting upward in the bed with his heart racing. His side stings, pain shooting through his nerves like liquid metal. His chest is covered in sweat, more of it dripping down his face. A man’s voice - a different one from before - speaks. But he doesn’t understand what the man is saying to him.
“What?” He asks, his head whipping to the side. There sits a man who, dear God, is that a man? It looks like a man, yes, a short, stubby man with a mop of dirty blond hair and a starter beard. But he feels wrong. So, so wrong. He does not feel like a man, he feels like something else in the body of a man. His eyes cause a pounding in Dmitri’s skull. They’re blue, ah, no, green. Blue? Green? Gray? Hazel? All the colors spin in the mystery man’s eyes, causing Dmitri’s head to spin.
Round and round and round again, dizzying. The man’s mouth opened and he spoke with a loud laugh, reaching forward and patting Dmitri’s shoulder. Please don’t touch me, Dmitri thinks but he can’t voice it. The man pulls away, picking up a clipboard hanging from the end of the bed. “Dmitri,” the man says, his accent confusing. Was he American? Dmitri had never met an American before, but the man wasn’t speaking like the Americans in movies or on TV. He hadn’t gotten to watch much, growing up in the Soviet Union and all, but after the fall, Eva’s little brother began to collect old Wild West films that he used to ask Dmitri to watch with him from time to time.
Not that Dmitri was paying much attention to a lot of them. Sometimes he’d just space out, letting the unfamiliar syllables fill his ears - the kid always insisted that he had to watch them in the original English - while not reading the subtitles. Sometimes he’d be too busy with his hand in Eva’s lap, under the blanket. Sometimes, he’d pay attention, but it was just too much. He did not understand the words, the accents, or the odd behavior of the men on the TV.
And he was never looking at the foreign women, not when he had his precious Fiancee on his arm.
Dmitri squints, not because he’s trying to get a better image in front of him, but because he’s trying to figure out the words the man is saying to him. The sounds are mostly similar to what he knows, but the words are so different.
The man is pacing from side to side, voice skull-rattlingly loud as he speaks. The door opens, causing the man to halt, spinning on his heels. A young woman, somewhere around Dmitri’s age steps in and snaps at the mystery man. The man huffs as she shoulders her way into the room and to Dmitri’s side.
“Hello,” The woman speaks, “My name is Sophia Light,” She tells him, taking his hand. She has blond hair swept into a high ponytail and a soft smile on her face. Dmitri’s brows furrow. He takes her hand gently in his, shaking it.
“Strelnikov, Dmitri Arkadeyevich,” He responds, and she nods, pulling away. “Where am I?” He asks, hoping she will answer. She sighs, shaking her head.
“The Foundation,” She speaks, and Dmitri detresses. That does not help; he doesn’t know what that means.
“T…thuh Foun…da-ation,” He tries to sound out, brows furrowing. “Fooound-aaatioon,” He says again, trying to get his tongue around it. The man lets out a sharp word - a swear? - plopping the clipboard on the bed. Dmitri flinches back from it, looking up at him. The man huffs, rambling on in English.
The words make no sense, but Dmitri tries to understand, he catches the man frustratedly saying “Sophia,” to which the woman replies with a snap and an over-exaggerated shrug. She speaks, and Dmitri catches an abbreviation, a snap of “GOC,” He doesn’t understand what it is, but it seems to be a sore spot for that mystery man. His mouth shuts, jaw clenching, but he relaxes all at once. He sighs and shakes his head, relenting.
He grumbles something, brows furrowed. He then steps forward, shooing the woman away with an instruction. He sits down in the chair again, thinking for a moment before taking Dmitri’s hand. Once more the Russian man feels a sense of impending doom, and he wants to lean back. He can almost envision himself leaning so far back he falls off, but then it all stops. The distant cry in his ears, the pit in his stomach, the tingle in his arm where the man’s hand is, the image of falling on the floor in his mind’s eye, and the strange ghost pain are all gone. Instead, there’s a warm, softness in his hand.
His eyes focus back on the strange man, holding Dmitri’s hand to his chest. Dmitri takes a deep breath. The man is warm, humanly warm. He feels human. The nagging thought that this is not a person in front of him, that it is a beast waiting for him to let his guard down remains in the very back of his mind, but it is much easier to dismiss now. The man’s shirt is soft, the familiar feeling of cotton cushioning Dmitri’s fingers. Underneath the pleasant fabric - which is much more pleasant to his hand than his eyes, now that he’s looking at the horrible colors - is a soft expanse of skin, and under that is a heartbeat. Steady, slow, but strong. That is what is calming him so well. Perhaps, this is a monster in a man’s skin, but perhaps it is only in his mind. Dmitri sighs, shoulders relaxing as his eyes become heavy.
“Clef,” The man holding his arm states, firmly. “Kuh·luh·eff,” He sounds out, pushing Dmitri’s hand firmer into his chest. “Clef.”
“K…Kl-eff,” Dmitri responds. His brows furrow as he looks at the man, who smiles slightly and lets his hand go. The man says something that seems to be praise. “You? Klef?” He asks, poking at the man.
The man says something, “Ah, Yes,” the man corrects himself. Dmitri nods, pulling his hand back.
“Klef,” Dmitri repeats before nodding. “Klef… Why am I here?” He asks, watching the man’s brows furrow. He speaks another sentence that Dmitri does not understand. Clef then sighs, patting Dmtiri’s shoulder. He wants to say something, but he isn’t sure how to get it out in a way Dmitri will understand, the Russian man can tell.
Clef pats his shoulder, firmly stating something. He then stands and leaves Dmitri. Alone. In the room. Again. Dmitri did not want to be alone. He bit his lip, thinking.
“Thuhh Fou-nd-aaaa-tion,” He sounds out, his brow furrows as he tries to sound out some of the other words he heard. Sophia, Clef, but everything else was too fast to catch. He groans, rubbing his eyes. If only he had paid more attention Eva’s brother used to speak about America. He just wanted to go home, to her.
Clef quickly becomes a staple of Dmitri’s life after that day. He wasn’t comforting - not in the usual way. He always reeked of sulfur and just felt off enough to send shivers up Dmitri’s spine, but he was a constant. He’d sit there, next to Dmitri’s bed, and ramble on about something that was upsetting him, or laugh about something someone else did, while Dmitri filled out dumb, childish English-learning pages. He had a professional English tutor, and it was helping some, but Clef usually chased them out for a few hours, and they didn’t like to stay when the nurses came in.
“And, so, Konny - fuck that guy,” Clef speaks slower now. He’s still too fast for Dmitri to understand sometimes, but he mostly drowns him out anyway.
“Ko-nie?” He sounds out, turning to Clef.
“No, Big Guy, Kon·ny,” Clef corrects, “Like Con-Knee,” He sounds out, watching the Russian man nod along. “That’s just what I call Doctor Kondriaki,” He explains.
“I…” Dmitri starts, brow furrowing as he tries to find the words. “I.. not met… Kon-dree-ack-ee,” He mumbles. He could tell his English was far from the fluid way Clef spoke, or the way Dr. Light did. Or the way the guards in the hall did, and that frustrated him. Still, Clef nods, grinning.
“Good job, Big Guy,” He nods, patting his shoulder. He shuffles back, “You'll know him when you see him,” he speaks slower to Dmitri than he does to everyone else, but it doesn't baby him. There's no pointing and “repeat after mes” like the nurses do. “He has, ahh,” Clef pauses, before reaching for the pen in Dmitri’s hand. He takes it, and Dmitri lets him, watching as he flips over the paper and draws a quick doodle. “Butterfly,” He points to it. “Buh·ter·fly,” He repeats.
“Butter- buh-ter-flyyy,” Dmitri follows along. “Butterfly,” And you would have thought they scored the final shot in a soccer game. Clef grins wildly, shaking him by his shoulder. He uses words Dmitri doesn’t quite know yet, and his words are too fast, but the cheering makes up for it. He can’t help the smile that spreads across his face.
“So, Konny, he has butterflies,” Clef points to the paper with the pen, before offering it back to Dmitri. The Russian man takes it, slowly leaning forward and drawing smaller “butterflies” around the one Clef drew. He continues to speak, using words Dmitri still doesn't know yet, “And they are some of the most annoying pests I know,” He complains.
“Pest?” Dmitri asks, turning to the man at his bedside. Clef pauses, taking a moment.
“Yeah, like, uhm,” Clef takes a moment. “Bugs… or… maybe… hold on,” He pulls out the small, dark gray box. The translator, Dmitri recognizes. He presses a couple of buttons, before turning the object to him. He takes it, scanning the word.
“Ah,” He hums in recognition. “Okay, they are pest, yes.”
Clef drones on. Dmitri asks about the words he catches, but only enough to make it seem like he’s trying. And he is, a little. But he’s mostly focusing on his page.
Doodles - poorly done, but doodles nonetheless - cover the page. The fleeting images of the blond hair that cursed his memory, the bright smiles that reached her eyes. He had written her name over and over again. He writes it in the unfamiliar alphabet to avoid the frustration of the nurses, or Dr. Light, but it doesn’t help. Not as much as writing her name properly, as it should be, in the swirling, swooping letters of Cyrillic will.
Eva, Eva, Eva, Eva - He wonders how she feels. There’s no doubt she’s upset, but how? Is she angry at him? She had told him not to go, she had begged him even. Did she have a grave for him, one that was devoid of a body because he wasn’t really dead? He hoped she wasn’t too mad, that she would forgive him.
But, he also hoped this was a dream, and he hadn’t woken up yet.
Clef leaves after a while, grinning and patting his shoulder. It makes Dmitri frown, he can tell that the man wants to be there as much as he does, but being alone isn’t doing good for him. He knows it won’t belong, people were always in and out of here. Dr. Light, the nurses, the man he had woken up to, faces and names that came in and left just as fast. He hated it, all of it. He wanted to be alone until he was - until there wasn’t the constant chatter of the man next to him, or the nurses cooing as they tried to get him to speak English, or Dr. Light’s not-so-great Russian - and his mind was flooded with himself.
His thoughts tormented him. It was hard enough to live having been through two wars, the images of death and loss flooding his senses. He remembered the first time he had a nightmare, having to wake up in a cold sweat, screaming with the tears pricked in his eyes. It was a familiar thing by now, but what was worse was the dreams Eva was present in. Some were of them living a peaceful life, and those hurt him simply because he awoke with the ache of the knowledge it wasn’t real. The others were her on the field, her dying - her golden hair being filled with the red of blood just before he could reach her. He swore he could feel her hair, her skin sliding against his fingertips as she fell.
He takes a shakey breath, pushing the table tray. It doesn’t move, so it is fruitless, but he still does it. His heart aches and he wants to lay down. And he doesn’t want to think about English anymore.
When he starts walking it gets a little better. He’s stumblily worse than he used to be after a night out, the shot to his side having done some nerve damage. But, walking a little is better than not walking at all. He felt bad for the nurse who was propping him up at the moment - a little thing who must’ve been fresh meat, stuck with the lesser sought jobs. At least that’s what Dmitri guesses.
Clef, whose job is apparently training new recruits, in some regard, had offered to let him use some of the training range. It was mostly an excuse to talk at him more, but Dmitri didn’t mind. He was slowly understanding Clef better, not having to ask as much about what words he was saying. Speaking of Clef, he’s rambling about some meeting with the higher-ups he had, smoking a cigarette.
“I mean, it was a good fucking idea!” Clef blows smoke out of his mouth. “Light just has a stick up her ass,” Dmitri hums lowly, frowning at the pain in his thigh as he tries to put his weight on it.
“I do think it is… nicer option,” Dmitri responds, turning back at the man. “People should… not be isolated,” He moves his hand forward. Clef nods, throwing his hands up.
“Exactly! I mean, I know it’s a hot topic with the Ethics Committee, but her nepobaby ass isn’t even involved there?” Clef huffs, rubbing his face. “You want a coffee? I want a coffee.”
Dmitri takes a moment, before nodding, “Yes, please.” The nurse’s head turns to him as the door swings shut.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Dr. Clef offer someone coffee,” The nurse muses, patting his shoulder. “He must have warmed up to you. At least, as much as he can warm up to anybody.”
The Russian man cocks a brow, blinking down at the nurse, “What do you mean?”
She huffs, “I guess I’m saying you’re special.”
The Russian man frowns, shaking his head. “If I am special, I wish no one else is.”
Тоска is a word he had yet to find the English translation for - some came close: melancholy (not that he could ever say that word right), yearning, boredom - but it was a word he was holding onto dearly. It was the closest thing he had to Russia - to home - since he was brought to this awful palace of winding gray walls.
He was walking on his own now, sleeping in the barracks with other men. He spoke with them from time to time, but mostly he found himself with Clef. It was simple, an almost automatic behavior he had learned.
When he ate, he’d sit across from the man, when he trained, he’d train with the man, and when he found himself with extra time, he would spend it at the man’s side, hands clasped together behind him tightly. He noticed a lot doing it, that Clef was always complaining about someone, or cursing at them. That people would cast half a glance at the three-eyed man before turning tail. And that Clef would always jeer after them, elbowing Dmitri in the ribs as he did.
Dmitri realized that there was some reason he was here, in this place, at the man’s side. He was discontent with the thought he had been ripped from his life, his home, his Eva, to be a lap dog for a man who had no friends. Until the day he held the paper in his hands.
A year and a half (545 days and 16 hours to be exact) since he had woken up in that medical wing, with the gruff older man who told him that he was “being put to real use”, he was called into a debriefing session in a meeting room. He was handed a folder with papers in it, in Russian - thank God - that described something he’d be sent out to take.
He found he did not wish for the action. That, despite it wasn’t the domesticity that he wished for, there was something domestic about following the man around. About waking up and knowing there was someone who wanted to see him. Wanted. As much as he ached for his Eva, he found the thought of leaving this new home, as much as it could be, hurt.
The day he was set to leave, he packed. He dressed in the new, deep blueish-gray uniform they had made for him, with the blue circle symbolizing what group he was in just above his beating heart, and set off before his squadmates. He stood, gun hung over his shoulder as he knocked on the door. A grumble sounds in response, and he pushes in, studying Clef as he sits in the chair.
“Dm-” Dmitri shushes him, closing the door. He takes the seat across from Clef, gently checking over his gun. He spends a few more moments, hushing the man anytime he tries to talk, before he stands up.
“I will be back,” he announces, even though the last time he made such a promise he was unable to fulfill it.