#PAVEL IS BACK | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ziracona · 4 months ago

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The fortune teller had shown him this. A week ago. Such a tiny handful of time.

He had simply thought, ‘the fuck was that?’ and shaken it off, to do his job. Like always. He had forgotten, turned away, and moved on.

Pavel was not supposed to believe in ghosts.

There is a fork in the road, and one leads down, endlessly, and you will not be the one to decide which way you go, but you will be the one to walk it.

It was too impossible to explain.

He didn’t think he could have with a year, if he tried. Everything, it was so easy to know, so impossible to express.

Pavel hadn’t wanted to die. He hadn’t wanted to kill Artyom. He had never wanted to drug him, and hand him over for interrogation. He had tried to explain that, but somewhere along the way, he had realized that was impossible too.

He didn’t hate the Spartans; he didn’t want to poison D-6, or Oktyabrskaya. But it didn’t matter, and it was as impossible to explain now, as that had been then.

No, it was more.

The simple truth was that D-6 was going to be taken over, if not by them, then by the Nazis. By Hanza. Maybe by a Ranger gone rogue. If they’d had a sleeper, who knew who else might be hidden inside. And it only took one to end everything.

They had to be the ones with D-6. People would die. Like a giant chess board, Oktyabrskaya would burn. Sacrifice a pawn. Take a bishop. There were no bloodless wars. This was the best that existed in reality: the war with the least blood. It was the best war offered. The lesser of evils. And the Red Line could provide that—equality, peace, order, structure, safety. Nobody else could be trusted to do it. Nobody else would. With every other faction, it would us vs them forever. With the Red Line, eventually ‘they’ would all become ‘us.’

But the rangers would not surrender. They would not give them D-6. It must be taken by force.

And that meant the only choice was how to do it. How many of their people died before the rangers were gone.

It wasn’t about honor and clean fighting. It was about strategy, and the most men going home still breathing. Even if it looked like this.

But of course Artyom had to be here.

It wasn’t fair. Hadn’t his luck torn him to shreds enough the last month already?

He had sort of hoped Artyom would be in Polis. Away from D-6, alive. Staying alive too. Shit. But here he was. And Pavel couldn’t let him through. He had orders, and the orders were right. The orders were ‘kill him.’

He was too strong, too connected, too lucky, too goddamn lucky. And he knew too much.

So either Artyom would die here. Or he would, and so would all his men.

Fair, right, love and war? At least that part was simple.

He couldn’t let him through. He couldn’t look the other way, or give up. Pavel had the same responsibility to fight as hard as he could, that he knew Artyom had, for his Spartans.

If only you’d taken the goddamn offer. WHY didn’t you take the offer? Why couldn’t you just join us? We would have taken you in! You could have stayed! I tried! I really tried! It didn’t have to end like this! This wasn’t the only version of the story.

But. Maybe it was.

The thought was a painful ache. He wished he only understood duty when it was his own.

There was nothing to do then, but kill each other.

Drawing on d’Artagnian was wrong. He hated it. He despised it. But he did it, because the only betrayal worse, would have been not to do it.

A rock and a hard place.

Nowhere left to go.

So he did the only thing he could, for either of them. He yelled.

Pavel mocked, and he baited, and he spat insults down from the roof and the scope of a rifle, taking shots at the friend down there who had saved his life three times, and was taking shots back at him. He played his part as hard as he could. If he killed Artyom, at least he would know Artyom was angrily firing back at an enemy, not dying for faltering on the trigger, not wanting to shoot a friend. And if Artyom killed him, then Artyom would live with the memory of how despicable and callous the traitor had been in his last minutes, not the pointless wondering of if it could have been another way.

It was the only mercy he had to give.

And as the fight drew on, and bodies dropped, and shots rang out, Pavel became more and more convinced it would be the latter.

Somewhere along the way, he looked over as a floodlight beside him shattered, and he realized he was the only one left. It was quiet in the yard.

Just him. Just Artyom.

“Come on up! Come and finish this!”

He reloaded, watching the ranger breach the first floor, hugging walls for cover, fighting in the way Pavel knew. It felt wrong to know. It gave him an edge, an edge he only had by working beside Artyom for so long in the trenches of the metro. He could only hope that Artyom held the same edge towards him, and take his next step forward.

Maybe this is what she meant, he thought, yelling insults of cowardice down the stairs, and taking expert shots at the man he had worked so hard to protect. Sending a bullet through his arm. Down is death. The other path is life. And it’s up to how quick Artyom’s draw is.

It almost felt out of his hands like that. And it was, as he caught a round in the side in exchange, another in the hip, and fell back, bleeding, up the stairs.

He kept shouting, kept taunting. Do not hesitate, d’Artagnian. Hate me, if you want to win. Remorse will make you slow.

Slow meant time to think. Slow meant time to regret, meant time to look back and think, ‘I could have made another choice.’

Pavel saw Artyom stick his head out from the edge of the stairwell, and shot him in the shoulder, taking a round to the chest in return.

That was the one. He felt it tear inside him, not pass like a lucky shot through muscle. That was it then. He was going to die, now. There was no way he could win. He would be too slow. It was over.

No. Unless he lowers his guard because he shot you, and you’re dying.

“Come on, Artyom, come on, come up here, blyadj! I I can't chase you anymore, but I can still put a hole through your head if I see it—don't you worry!” he called with all the venom he could muster, coughing the wet cough of blood, and dragging himself back, trying to find somewhere to retreat.

Artyom must have listened, because he stuck an arm out and fired blind, catching Pavel in the arm and the side. The force flung him to the floor, and Pavel grunted and coughed again, fighting a little to breathe and move at the same time now, dragging himself back along the floor. Unable to stand.

My filter is almost up. I can’t stand. It’s over.

There was no use. Even if he killed Artyom now, he would die before being able to deploy the virus in D-6. There was no longer a duty to kill Artyom. It would accomplish nothing, but the loss of a friend.

Pavel let go of his gun, and dragged himself back as far as he could, until he hit a little table by the far wall of the second story, and watched the entryway with something more like dread than he had expected. But not fear. —Pain. Sadness.

It didn’t have to be this way.

It hadn’t. It didn’t. But it was too late now; it was.

I wish I could explain. There must be words, somewhere, the right ones, that someone could have put into an order to make all this make sense to his silent musketeer. He understood, so there must be a way for someone else to as well.

But Pavel didn’t have it. He couldn’t explain that it had had to be this way, and what was done was done, and he had meant all of what he said, about the Red Line, about the metro, and about Artyom. It was just…

But I can’t. I can’t explain you are my d’Artagnian, and it’s okay to kill me here. And I know it.

So he would do what he could. It was easy, to kill an enemy and walk away.

Easier for Artyom, who would live.

But it wasn’t the truth. And he wished he could have kept that.

The tall shadow of the young ranger darkened the doorway to this last hall, and the bloodied figure approached and stood over him, gun raised, movements careful. He paused, surveying the clearly empty hands and weakened state of his enemy, and he lowered the gun.

There was a moment where Pavel thought somehow, things were not going to end the way he was so certain. Some strange miracle, like the other times Artyom hadn’t been the last thing he’d seen, but the person who’d gotten him back up instead.

Then Artyom holstered the gun, and drew a knife.

“Oh, a knife ah?” he asked, voice taunting, apathetic, eager. He knew it wasn’t ‘a’ knife. It was the knife he’d given him when they met. When they saved each others’ lives the first time, in that death camp. But there was no point left in saying that. He had not wanted to kill Artyom painfully. Why make him live that way either? Athos was supposed to look after d’Artagnian, after all. And he was also supposed to die.

“That ‘ma boy, that’s my boy! Давай - давай! No remorse, no reproach!” he called, fighting to make each syllable egg his friend on this one last time. “Давай!”

And Artyom came. No, ‘Why!?’ no angry shouts of blame, just silence and movement, falling on him almost like a cat, and dragging him up, a knife to his neck.

He should have slashed his throat. Pavel was as close as he could be to ready for that. It was the best he could offer, and he’d made it to the end.

And instead.

There was this.

The small dark one had grabbed him, and he’d been dragged into a memory like he was there again, in the flesh, his orders, less than a day ago. And at the mention, at the thoughts of infecting, poisoning Oktyabrskaya, D-6, Artyom, he had been overcome from the inside by something that felt like an echo and a whisper and a scream.

Pavel didn’t know the voices he heard, yet somehow he did. He knew them like he’d heard them all his life.

A good communist did not believe in ghosts, but he knew it was the phantoms of Oktyabrskaya, of everyone he had had to kill to get this far, reaching out for him. A cold, awful sound, like a dying breath, shrieking a testament to all his sins.

His bones felt like they were being overtaken by ice. His head was pounding, so much it was hard to see. And he couldn’t move. Everywhere, there were hands—arms—grey and boney and dead, charred corpses burned away so fast and so unfairly, so inexplicably, they couldn’t understand they had had to die. And Pavel didn’t know what they were, or how a cave of twisted bodies making up wall and ceiling and floor, hands everywhere you could see, devoid of muscle like a rotting corpse, could hold him back—could exist at all—but, they had him. They had him and he could not get free. He felt hands on his arms and wrists, ankles and feet, his legs, his sides, digging into his head.

They could not be this strong! Even wounded, he should have been able to break free, to run! But it was like he physically could not. Like they had been made to hold him, and him alone.

And across from him, in the dim red light of this impossible hell, was Artyom. No gas mask here, face clear, eyes almost blank as he stared back at Pavel. He didn’t look shocked. He didn’t look afraid. Like…like he knew.

A sudden terror gripped him. Pavel didn’t know how he knew, but he knew with absolute certainty in every fiber of his being that if he didn’t get out now, he was going to be here, feeling himself bleed to death while hands dragged him apart, forever.

“Hey! Artyom! What’s up with you!? Hey, hey! My friend! Artyom?!”

The response was automatic. He had not been afraid to die. But whatever this was? This, it terrified him. He could feel it trying to eat him alive, to tear back his soul piece by piece, like it was picking apart his skin, and he couldn’t even move!

A second cold wave of fear crashed over him as he remembered that he had seen this before, with the soothsayer. He had seen this exact scene, from the third person.

No, he realized with a terror like your grip on a cliff face slipping, From Artyom’s point of view. I saw what he’s seeing. And this is the choice.

God, he was going to leave him.

He had not moved when Pavel called out. He was just staring.

God please, no.

“Artyom! Artyom—please! Artyom!” he called, the terror in his voice now, “Don’t leave like this!”

Artyom took a step forward, and then another, like someone sleepwalking, and Pavel felt terror mingle with relief, and then he saw patches of Artyom grow transparent. Like he was…fading.

No.

“Artyom! Kill me!” he shouted, thrashing with building desperation, “Kill me! Artyom!”

The hands were sinking into him. Pain shot through his arms and legs, his gut, his forehead, and he screamed.

“Artyom! Help!” His voice was breaking, and he fought with everything he had, but it was killing him. It was making him like it, and he could feel it. “Artyom!”

His friend met his eyes, and Pavel felt despair run him through as he realized what was going to happen to him, now, and forever. He couldn’t take it, but he was going to anyway. There was nothing left.

And then Artyom’s expression changed, and there was a familiar look in his eyes. Pavel had seen it. Through the bars in that Nazi cell, and from the noose choking the life out of him at his public execution, one last time on his back in that plane, looking up at the frantic ranger trying to force a gas mask over his head.

Artyom ran for him.

Pavel wanted to cry. He felt like he was being ripped to shreds. “Faster...” he begged weakly, straining towards Artyom with everything he had, “Can't take it...”

Artyom reached him; fingers dug into his coat and ripped him free. Pavel felt himself fall back against the ground. Saw Artyom above him. But, his brain was past processing anything but the whispers of condemnation, calling him to join. Anything but the fear and pain of dying forever here.

The hands were everywhere. Still reaching, grasping, trying to pull him back. His eyes found Artyom’s.

“Anything...” he begged. Almost a whimper. He couldn’t find the words. He could never find the words, and it would be his soul this time. Because he couldn’t…

The Ranger was looking down with the same almost violent distress in his eyes as before, and then he dropped on top of him, dragging Pavel into himself. For a moment, he thought he was being attacked. “But not...” he pleaded weekly, voice muffled against the bloody Ranger armor, and then as no more pain came, he realized d’Artagnian was shielding him, and he stopped.

Things changed.

The shrieks faded, the chill, the hate. He couldn’t breathe, but Pavel didn’t care. All he had wanted, was to be away from those things, and he was. It was enough. He let his eyes shut.

Vaguely, Pavel was aware of being moved, but he was too weak to move or to look. Even choking poisoned air into his lungs was about to be too much. But then, there was a click, and his breathing eased again. An air filter… must have…

He tried to open his eyes. He wanted to say something. Maybe, ‘Thank you.’ But, that wouldn’t be right either. And his body could not find the strength for any words, and it dragged him under, into a deep sleep. Still breathing.

One last time.

[Part 2][Part 3]

#metro last light #metro last light fic #pavel morozov #artyom chyornyj #partyom #this scene made me feel things and I really wanted to write down how playing it felt to me but from pavel’s pov. such a masterful scene. I #went from wanting to throw him through a brick wall to wanting to carry him out on my back. you stupid stupid stupid man. Athos…TuT #anyway reading Iwantofall ‘s fic inspired me to write my metro takes in fic form so thank u 💙#metro last light spoilers

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