#anigor

[lafiametta]

Just saw Anora and got so obsessed w Igor its not funny i need to see more posts about him 😭😭😭😭

Igor’s on such a journey and I love it.

Can you imagine: it’s your birthday and you get a call from the Armenian guy you work for to pick him up at a baptism so you both can check on his boss’s boss’s rich-ass useless son and see if he has or has not married a prostitute. You understand the job — look tough, provide a little muscle if the situation calls for it — and once it’s done you can go return your grandmother’s car from where you borrowed it and visit with her for an hour or so before maybe heading out for a lowkey night to celebrate.

Instead, the rich-ass useless son runs away and you end up having to make sure the girl he married — who takes great offense to being called a prostitute, by the way — doesn’t take off too, and because she won’t stop throwing things and hitting you in the face and screaming you don’t know what else to do except restrain her with a phone cord.

And then she bites you and breaks the Armenian’s nose even as you’ve got her in a hold on top of you.

It’s not exactly what Igor had in mind for the day, is all I’m saying.

As an audience, we also get our expectations turned on their head: Igor, who at first just seems like your standard Slavic hired goon, turns out to have a heart of gold, or at least a soft spot just big enough for a beautiful, foul-mouthed erotic dancer with an impressive left hook. (Although he’s no slouch either, considering how he wields that aluminum bat.) There’s something about her that he really likes, even from the beginning, and you can see him looking out for her and trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to make up for what he did to her back at the house.

I think he admires her brashness, and the way she’s determined to fight for the Cinderella dream that a life with Ivan promised her. In both the courtroom scene and on the tarmac with Ivan’s mother he secretly smiles as he listens to her argue and threaten, even against people far wealthier and more powerful.

(There also seems to be a class element, at least where her conflict with the Zakharovs are concerned. Igor probably doesn’t love the fact that he’s employed by these rich assholes and Ani saying that she’s going to take half their money has him silently cheering her on, because, yeah, fuck them. And when Galina Zakharov winks at him after threatening Ani’s whole existence, he has to look away in shame, because he still works for them, and they think that means they own him.)

I’d love to know when he decides to steal the ring from Toros. Maybe at some point on the plane, after he can see that part of her has given up. It’s a brilliant display of rebellion, made even better by the fact that he waits until the very last minute to give it to her. (Would we have heard all that shit about “hunchback weirdos” and “rape eyes” if he had surprised her with it the first moment they were alone? But Igor is secure enough to take all her insults, and probably likes the fact that she feels safe enough to keep roasting him again and again. “Touché, motherfucker?” she says, and all he can do is giggle.)

Which brings us to the car scene.

The ring is an act of atonement, something to make up for what she’s been through over the past two days — some of which he knows he’s responsible for — and one last fuck you to the family that humiliated her. Igor thinks he’s evening the score before he says goodbye, not realizing that Ani sees it as a gesture she needs to pay back to keep feeling like she’s in control. So she gives him what she thinks he wants — what all men want from her.

Igor’s an adaptive, street-smart guy, but he wasn’t prepared for what she ends up doing. He doesn’t resist, though, taking initiative only once she’s fully on top of him and then just to take her face in his hands. Does some part of him know this is transactional? Does some part of him want it to be real the way Ani wanted Ivan to be real? He wants to pretend at least, and tries to kiss her, only for Ani it’s too real, too much, and she’ll fight to make it stop, like she fights for so many things in her life. But the emotions bubble up anyway, and even through the haze of sex Igor can see she’s in pain, so he pulls her in close and lets her cry, steady and silent as the sobs wrack her body like waves.

It’s a scene that neatly mirrors the one from the living room — him holding her as she’s on top of him — now cast as an expression of vulnerability and care rather than fear and aggression. He’s always been strong enough to hold her, but it’s only at the very end that Ani is willing to be held.

[snookbug]

this is 100% me being delusional, but the choice to include igor in the frame while toros' is looking for 'husband' in her phone contacts has me giggling and kicking my feet.

[theredconversegirl]

Hi! Do you know any fics where Sakura and Sasuke meet up in private after he leaves Konoha? <3

Hi nonny,

Thank you for stopping by! 💕

I know some fics like that, but not all of them are about them purposely meeting in private. Some are accidental meetings, some are not so accidental, and in some of the fics, they will meet more than once after the first encounter. I hope that works for you! 😁

Here you go:

Clandestine Encounters 🍅🌸

*Fics were they meet while Sasuke is a missing nin. Some encounters are accidental, others not so much.

A Reason By: sincerelyLen

It was a reunion Haruno Sakura hardly expected. [Rated K+, complete]

🍅🌸🍅🌸🍅🌸

And Their Unsaid Words Became Their Silence By: Raina1

This conversation never happened. [Rated M, complete]

🍅🌸🍅🌸🍅🌸

Because I Love You By: flowerslut

He lifted his arm, not to attack, but to show her his power. The power he had to destroy, to kill. The power he had that could take her life at any given moment. He was not her friend; he was her enemy. "It's okay," she said in the cold hard voice, "I wasn't planning on surviving this fight anyways." [Rated T, complete] ⚠ Warning: death.

🍅🌸🍅🌸🍅🌸

clandestine meetings By: supremelyuchiha /  SS_UCHIHA

He knew she might get sick from the coldness of the night—just like when he knocked her unconscious and left on the bench near the village gates—but he wanted her to rouse from her peaceful slumber. Ultimately, he wanted her to see him. But he stood hidden, alone in the dark, like a predator waiting for its prey to take the wrong turn. And he watched her. [Rated T, complete]

🍅🌸🍅🌸🍅🌸

Dissolutionated Return By: bacatlover

With lady luck all but gone for Sakura, how will she deal with the one and only Uchiha in her sights? [Rated M, complete]

🍅🌸🍅🌸🍅🌸

Fade Away By: Tsugi no mai hakuren

Sasuke made Sakura a deal she simply couldn't refuse. In exchange he could promise her the safety of the Hidden Leaf but what would she have to give up in return? Is she willing to go as far as to help him complete the last of his goals? [Rated M, incomplete]

🍅🌸🍅🌸🍅🌸

Luck of the Draw By: Aurora Ciel

Tenshi: a brothel that kidnaps girls and forces them into prostitution. Sakura's mission: rescue the girls and shut down Tenshi. But what happens when she comes across the one person she never expected to see again? [Rated M, incomplete]

🍅🌸🍅🌸🍅🌸

Magnetism By: bacatlover

She never thought he'd be the one drawn to her, so unlike her childhood. But on this night, he needs her just as much as she's ever wanted him. [Rated M, complete]

🍅🌸🍅🌸🍅🌸

Night Visitor By: MangaAnimeLover

Sakura had always been the one chasing Sasuke, but when he left and years passed by, her longing for him faded. Now, years after their depart, Sasuke finds a need for her and seeks her to satisfy this deep hunger. [Rated M, complete]

🍅🌸🍅🌸🍅🌸

tomorrow morning By: ohwhatsherface / @sun-summoning

Drabbles. Sasuke, Sakura, and a life without Konoha. [Rated T, complete]

🍅🌸🍅🌸🍅🌸

Treason By: @wishingforatypewriter​

A viral illness takes the ninja world by storm while Sasuke is travelling with team Hebi/Taka. Only one medic so far had been able to form an antidote and resources are scarce.

Of Failed Schemes and Second Goals

Sakura encounters Karin for the first time. Setting: a month or two after the events of Treason (not necessary to read, but recommended)

The Fear

Sakura gets kidnapped by the Akatsuki. Setting: Treason-verse, maybe three weeks after “Of Failed Schemes and Second Goals”

🍅🌸🍅🌸🍅🌸

Once By: Alena S Anigor (Alenas)

The forest is deep and frightening when they meet again... [Rated T, complete]

🍅🌸🍅🌸🍅🌸

Once Bitten By: Aya8

Sasuke and Sakura with snake jutsu, biting, and blindfolds. [Rated M, complete] *Ch 2 is the revised and longer version of Ch1.

🍅🌸🍅🌸🍅🌸

Neck By: MintiNeko 

First it was the pressure point, then the attempted strangulation. It was always the damn neck with him. [Rated K+, complete]

🍅🌸🍅🌸🍅🌸

Thief By: twitch and spaz 

Sakura should have known stealing Sasuke's sword probably hadn't been the best idea. [Rated T, complete]

🍅🌸🍅🌸🍅🌸

Love is a Hole in the Heart By: Mizu no Kenshi 

You have my replacement, and we have yours. [Rated T, complete]

🍅🌸🍅🌸🍅🌸

Interchange By: WinterVines 

Sasuke was camped out in a grungy bar in Earth Country when she walked in. [Rated K+, complete]

🍅🌸🍅🌸🍅🌸

Shut Your Mouth By: Sharinganblossom 

There was another side to her that he wasn't seeing. [Rated T, complete]

🍅🌸🍅🌸🍅🌸

Welcome To The S Club, Sakura By: Rainy Downpour 

She went through the exact same thing they went through: sleeping with a S-Class criminal. [Rated M, complete]

——————————————————————————

⚠ In order to not make this list longer or repeat more fics, I also recommend checking these other lists:

SasuSaku featuring Hebi/Taka!Sasuke 🍅🌸

Wanted Smut 🍅🌸

There are a few other fics in there that fits this category.

——————————————————————————

I hope you enjoy these stories. 😊 I'll add more fics as I review my lists or in case anyone sends me recs. ❤

~ Happy Reading & Stay Safe!

xoxo

[mika080]

Behind the Word

by Alena S. Anigor

Summary: Maybe it was time for him to finally understand the meaning behind the kanji on his forehead...Slight [Gaara x Sakura]. Reviews are welcome.

Rated: K+ - English - Romance - Chapters: 1 - Words: 1,243

Link.

[lafiametta]

I don’t care how unrealistic it is, I want Anora to get her trip to Disney World. Igor will go with her, of course, and buy her a pair of hot pink sequined mouse ears that she wears in every selfie she posts on Instagram. (Seriously, so many selfies in front of Cinderella’s castle.) She makes fun of the fact that he’s wearing fucking gopnik track pants the whole time, but to make up for it she’ll thread her fingers through his as they wait in line for the Haunted Mansion and whisper in his ear all the things they’ll do once they get back to the hotel room. At the nighttime fireworks show, she starts shivering a little in her tank top and short shorts, so he silently slips his hoodie over her shoulders and pulls her tight into his arms. Her cheek presses against his shoulder and she breathes in traces of cigarette smoke and his aftershave as the fireworks light up the sky, the moment like magic she wants to hold onto forever.

[lafiametta]

I’ve seen a lot of different interpretations online (esp on twitter lol) but I wanted to know what yours was re: the reason ani was crying at the end of Anora and what it means that she did it with Igor (as opposed to any other time in the movie)

Ani's breakdown in the final scene is a combination of a bunch of things: over the past two days, she's lost the dream of the life she had envisioned for herself, her husband (who she probably believed she loved, at least on some level) has rejected her, she's been insulted and denigrated, she's been bruised and manhandled and dragged all over New York and then across the country and back, and she's got nothing to show for it (aside from the money and the ring, but I don't think she's really thinking about that yet). It's a lot, and I think if Igor hadn't given her the ring she would have gone into her house and crawled in bed and cried where no one could see or judge her.

But now he's given her this thing, which in her mind puts her in his debt, and she doesn't want to be in debt to this guy, this psycho who confuses her by doing nice things but who, in the end, is an embodiment and final reminder of this terrible episode of her life that she only wants to forget.

So she decides to have sex with him. It'll even the score — no more debt, and she'll be done.

The tricky thing with sex is that it can make things complicated, especially when the people involved have very different assumptions about what it means. Igor's looking at her and he's cupping her face and trying to kiss her and she realizes that he wants her — not just her body, but a connection deeper and more real than she's prepared for. Ani rejects that �� the last two days have sent her reeling, made her question her worth and her whole life, and who is this fucking asshole to try to tell her she's suddenly worth wanting? — and she lashes out. It's the physical and emotional outburst, followed by the fact that he still doesn't reject her (like everyone else has), even as he sees her, sees everything she is, that makes it all come crashing down.

She only really starts sobbing once he's started to pull her into his arms, I think because it's the only point in the movie she feels safe enough to let go. It's that, and not the sex, that forms the real intimacy of the scene.

[lafiametta]

Right before Igor pulls Anora into his arms you can see him briefly kiss the top of her head and I don’t think my heart can take that kind of knowledge.

[lafiametta]

hey this isn't so much of a prompt more of a word vomit, I can't stop thinking about Igor in the final car scene.

Like even before she climbs onto his lap, his face is just so wide eyed and vulnerable and when she initiates sex he's almost bewildered and he's just so focused on her and you can tell it's about being WITH her and not just having her body like it was with Vanya.

Like even when he tries to kiss her, i know some people are like 'its so clear she doesnt want it and he's forcing it' but i dont think it's that simple. Like you pointed out, he moves very slowly when he first tries to kiss her and I noticed when she pulls back his reaction seems to be Confusion (also when having sex your brain isnt in the same rational place as it is when you're an audience watching a movie, what's SO CLEAR to us isn't always clear to the characters)

I dunno, Id love your thoughts or even a Igor POV of that scene I'd love if you wanted x

Weirdly enough, Anon, I had someone send an ask on almost this exact same question about five minutes after you did, so I’m just going to answer you both here! (Update: it was you, twice! Thanks for letting me know!)

At some point I’ll probably end up giving the fic treatment to the car scene from Igor’s POV, but for now, I’m more than happy to just offer my humble analysis of what I think is going on.

And it’s even more heartbreaking than I originally thought.

(This got long, so I put it all under a cut.)

From the moment Ani takes off her jacket, you can just see this mixture of confusion and surprise wash over him. He dropped off her bags on the porch; he clearly thinks she’s going to be getting out of the car shortly. But as she takes off her jacket and turns directly to face him, the seductive expression she makes for men at the club now firmly in place (which is the first time in the scene she’s smiling — or close to it), he’s realizing that she plans to stay in the car for a while longer. Once she climbs in his lap, it begins to click (“Oh, she wants to make out in the car”) and he’s obviously okay with that, based on the way that he tries to move his mouth closer to hers right before and just as she releases the seat lever. By that point, it’s clear he has feelings for her and while going straight to making out may seem like a bit of a jump, there’s the hope that maybe this means she has feelings for him too. And right after his seat falls back, he gives her this disbelieving little grin, and it’s like, oh no, Igor, this is not going to be the sexy little make-out session you’re envisioning right now.

(What makes it so much worse is that she has no intention of kissing him or offering any sort of display of feelings; he’s not even going to get any kind of foreplay beside a preparatory handjob before she gets right to what she sees as the primary transactional act.)

It’s when she starts hiking up her skirt that you can see him getting confused again (even more so when she moves his hands to her ass) and then, when she goes for his waistband, you can see him shift into complete disbelief (and not in the “I can’t believe this is happening” way, but in the “what the hell is happening” way).

I imagine that some part of him wanted to know what was happening enough to stop her, but he’s a man, and a girl he likes is suddenly stroking his dick, and that’s not really a place for rational thought, you know? (Watch his hands as she’s stroking him; he can’t help himself from instinctually squeezing her ass.) He definitely understands that if he says anything or makes some kind of “hey, hold on there” protest, she might stop touching him, and he doesn’t want that to happen.

So mostly it’s a mixture of shock and pleasure as she strokes him, with him closing his eyes and burying his face in her chest as he gives in to the sensation of it. He must know something’s off, but he just doesn’t want it to stop.

Even with all that, he’s still not prepared when she pauses to get her fingers wet and then reaches back down to maneuver him inside her. Whatever he had thought might happen between them at this point, this wasn’t even in the realm of possibility. (The night before she had accused him of wanting to rape her! And now they’re having sex!)

All he can do is just stare at her, wide-eyed, or else close his eyes and just feel what she’s doing to him.

When she finally gets him positioned, she leans back (to create a little more physical — and presumably emotional — distance between them, I imagine), but he continues to look up at her, as if he can’t look away, as if the intimacy of what he thinks they’re sharing can only be expressed through this kind of intense, continual eye contact. And maybe it’s there that he starts to convince himself, despite how fucking weird and off the rails this all is, that because she’s doing this with him, it must mean something, and he must mean something to her. He wants it to be real so badly and you see that hope just shining out of him the whole time she’s moving on top of him. (In an interview I read, Yura Borisov talked about how he saw Igor as a lonely person, and I think it makes sense that Igor would be more invested — or even desperate — to hold onto a connection with Ani.)

As she quickens the pace, she throws her head up and looks away, breaking the connection. That’s when he reaches up to her face, holding it in place and bringing her eyes back to his. He wants her to look at him, to see him, to acknowledge what (he thinks) is happening between them.

And if maybe if it’s real, if the connection they’re making with their bodies is an indication of an actual connection, then he can kiss her. It’s clear he wants to kiss her — he’s been trying to since she climbed into his lap. He arches up super slowly, but clearly intent on moving his mouth closer to hers. I don’t think he’s fully registered that she’s stopped moving on top of him, or that she makes these tiny jerking motions to get out of his grasp. As you said, it’s clear to us as the audience that she’s trying to resist, but to Igor, so caught up in the pleasure of her body and — perhaps even more powerfully — the sheer desire to make this encounter into something deeper and more real, it’s not something he has the capacity to notice.

And then she squeals and pulls away and starts hitting him, and at that point the spell (such as it was for Igor) is broken. He’s completely confused at first, then focused on trying to get control of her limbs so she’ll stop attacking him. This is the girl he remembers from their first meeting, the out of control one who screamed and landed those impressive blows to his face. But like that first meeting, he doesn’t fight back, instead simply restraining her so she doesn’t do any more damage.

For a moment, they just look at each other, barely breathing, and I think it’s here that with everything stripped away, he really does see her. He’s been watching and observing her for the past two days, but now he can see how much of a front she had really been putting on, how much her confrontational bluster and attitude had been hiding. Because underneath all of that, she’s a hurt and heartbroken girl, the pain of what she’s feeling written all over her face. The life she had imagined has been ripped away from her, and the man she married and thought she loved ultimately rejected her. And Igor, even though he must have been disappointed to realize that she didn’t climb into his lap and have sex with him because she had feelings for him, clearly gets that what she’s going through at that moment matters more. She needs someone to be there for her, to accept her and acknowledge her pain.

So he pulls her into his arms — and kisses the top of her head, just fuck me up why don’t you? — and lets her feel everything she’s been keeping in. She’s just sobbing her heart out in these spasms of despair, and in the emotional gut punch of it all we don’t even notice that he’s close to crying too. As he holds her, his eyes are wet and he keeps blinking, as if to keep his own tears at bay. (I didn’t even realize this was happening until I rewatched the scene to answer this ask; it’s subtle and absolutely phenomenal acting by Yura Borisov.)

So heartbreaking. So good. I hope the Oscar voters are taking notes.

[lafiametta]

A collection of Anora x Igor shortfic based on one-word prompts

scars / hug / hold me / fear / Sunday / heart-shaped sunglasses / cuddle / easy / orgasm / Ivan / I love you / hands / breakfast

OR READ IT ON AO3

[lafiametta]

for the anora x Igor one-word fic prompt : scars

When his shirt first comes off, she’s too distracted to notice, so it’s only as they’re lying there on her bed, the thin morning light filtering in through the curtain, that her eyebrows lift a little and she traces her fingers up towards the center of his chest.

She glances up, cheeks flushed with the sheen of exertion.

“Holy shit.”

Igor says nothing. She does enough talking for the two of them already and he sees no reason to change that now.

“Did you get fuckin’ stabbed or something?”

He shakes his head softly. “No.”

This isn’t really how he had imagined their first post-sex conversation going—even though technically they’ve already had sex, which he’s not sure counts, given how complicated the whole thing was. He’s mostly just pleased that they got to do it in a bed this time and that it seemed like something she was enjoying for its own sake, not because she thought she owed him anything.

“So then what happened?”

He curls onto his side to face her, his arm slipping under a lumpy, flannel-covered pillow. He doesn't have to glance down to know what’s there: a pale ridge running down his sternum, almost twenty centimeters from top to bottom. If she looked closer, she would see a dozen tiny pocks on either side, now faded with time, marking where they put the stitches in.

“Heart surgery.”

A small pinched line appears between her eyebrows and for a moment he’s touched at her display of concern.

“Was it like a heart attack?”

“No,” he says, suddenly feeling the need for a cigarette. But the pack is in his jacket pocket, all the way across the room, and he doesn’t want to leave the tiny nest of warmth that her body and the sheets are providing. “I was born with...” —he pauses, the English words frustratingly distant and unreachable— “There was a hole.”

What he’s telling her is not enough, and he knows he could switch to Russian and have the whole story out in thirty seconds, but there are things that even in your own language you don't really have words for, that can't be shaped into easy explanations. It’s impressions, mostly: the antiseptic smell of countless doctors’ offices, the strained voices of his parents behind closed doors, the blindingly bright room he woke up in, his scrawny ten-year old body nearly swallowed up in the expanse of the hospital bed.

“You were born with a fuckin’ hole in your heart? Jesus Christ.”

She curls back and reaches towards the top of the nightstand, returning with a vape pen. The bedsheet has fallen down to her waist, offering him a distracting enough view that he doesn’t fully register that she’s finished taking a puff and is now offering it to him. It’s peach-flavored and fairly disgusting, but the sensation of nicotine hitting the back of his throat is enough to make up for it.

“Although it’s kind of ironic,” she murmurs. “Igor’s supposed to be the hunchback, but that’s some real Frankenstein shit right there.”

Perhaps to soften the bite of the joke she inches closer, until she’s almost snuggling against him. Her dark hair curtains over her cheek and shoulder, glints of pink tinsel shining like tiny stars.

He reaches out to run his hand along the bare skin of her back. It's smooth, unmarked, perfect. But he knows as well as she does how little that can matter. There will always be scars no one can see.

[send me a one-word Anora x Igor prompt]

[lafiametta]

Get you a man who confidently mispronounces French words and then cracks up when you correct him and call him a motherfucker.

[lafiametta]

another little thing i noticed is how ani doesn't freely speak russian until after she and ivan are married. and when she introduces herself to his mom, she does so in russian (and uses the name anora, not ani). I find it interesting how she seems to have compartmentalized herself almost and how anora/her russian self is sort of her true self in a way. idk if that makes sense. and i can see her speaking russian with igor in quiet, vulnerable moments later down the line

Ani's Russian identity — and the ways that she variously picks it up and discards it — is such an interesting aspect of the movie. Her passport says “Anora Mikheeva,” her boss refers to her as “Russian Ani,” and she knows enough to Russian to understand what Toros, Garnik, and Igor are saying to each other, but she also seems to reject that identity (“it's Ani,” “I go by Ani”) just as she rejects Igor's old-world idea that names themselves have meaning — as opposed to Americanized nicknames that we can use to recreate ourselves whenever we want. The only times we hear her speak Russian are to Ivan (at the club, when they meet; on the couch, when they're talking about his family; and in the SUV, after the courtroom scene) and to his mother, when they meet in the airport waiting room. In all these cases, she's using Russian, a language she feels self-conscious speaking, in order to please Ivan or to impress his mother. (When they first meet, he praises how well she speaks, but on the couch he mocks it a little, and his mother can't bother to contain her disdain. In a way his mother is rejecting Ani's less-than-successful attempt at reclaiming her Russian identity — along with rejecting her as a sex worker, of course — whereas Igor encourages her to embrace it: “I like Anora more than Ani.”)

But, yeah, I think Igor has picked up on the Russian Anora/American Ani dichotomy fairly quickly because he can tell she understands him when he's speaking and he heard her speaking Russian to Ivan in the SUV. Language was something that connected Ani and Ivan (her Russian was why Jimmy came looking for her in he first place), but it's also something that connects Ani and Igor. If he's feeling shaky about his English, he can switch and speak to her in Russian — as he does in the living room when they're watching TV — and know she'll understand. He wants to remind her that her Russian name is something worth holding onto, because she is “light” and “bright,” as her name describes, at least to him. (And he's a warrior, a strong and protective figure, not a weirdo fucking piece of shit.)

But, oh man, the two of them speaking Russian to each other in some quiet, vulnerable moment? I need it like I need air to breathe.

[lafiametta]

Okay I have something for your one word Igor and anora prompt - how about 'easy'?

I hope you all are ready for a very drunk Igor... :)

She’s a few hours into her shift when she checks her phone, swiping it open to a string of messages.

ARE YOU HOME OR OUT?

I AM IN DOWNTOWN WITH OLD FRIEND FROM MOSKVA

BY EMPIRE STATE BUILDING

YOU SHOULD COME MEET US

ANI COME MEET US PLEASE

WE ARE HAING FUN

She rolls her eyes because he sounds like such a complete fucking idiot, even though it’s also kind of cute with him pleading in all-caps.

dude, i’m at work

Almost immediately, there’s three moving dots and then a reply.

WHEN ARE YOU DONE? COME LATER, WE WILL STAY

ME AND TOLYA

MY FRIEND IS TOLYA

He’s normally not this persistent—or chatty—so part of her is wondering what’s going on, although she has a suspicion. Curling herself around a little to hide her phone, she leans against the bar and types out a response.

are you drunk?

YES, LITTLE

COME HAVE A DRINK ANI PLEASE

Another message from him pops up: a map with a shared location, pinpointing some place on West 35th Street.

She doesn’t answer, but just turns off her phone and slips it back in her purse. There’s a lot going on tonight—halfway through her shift and she’s barely cleared $150—and she doesn’t really have time for any of Igor’s weird bullshit. His weird drunk bullshit.

She hasn’t ever seen him drunk before, she realizes. They’ve been high together, but that just made him more mellow than anything else. He doesn’t really seem to drink at all, at least not when he’s around her, and he doesn’t talk about going out a lot, to bars or clubs or anything like that. Maybe he just saves it for old friends from Russia, however many of those he might have floating around.

For the next couple of hours she tries to focus on work, circulating on the floor and introducing herself to some of the unattached men she sees. There’s a few that seem promising, but none end up wanting to head over to VIP to get a private dance. By two, the club is growing emptier, with fewer prospects. She’s got enough to tip out—even for the DJ, who still hasn’t bothered to listen to her playlist—but the night’s not going to be one she writes home about. At this point, it’s so dead that she might as well head home.

Jimmy gives her permission to go early and she’s in the dressing room, changing back into her street clothes, when she thinks to check her phone.

His last set of messages are from thirty minutes ago.

ANI ARE YOU COMING

TOLYA WANTS MEET YOU

BEATIFUL ANI I WANT TO SEE YOU

Part of her just wants to ignore the whole thing—it’s been a long night, with not a lot to show for it—and head straight for the Q train and then home to bed. Plus, he’ll be so pink and embarrassed the next time she sees him, which should be fucking hilarious. She throws on her puffy jacket and her headphones and waves goodbye to some of the girls, thinking to head straight in the direction of the subway entrance. But there’s something that keeps her from going down the steps and instead pulls her down past Penn Station and the Garden, until she’s crossed 6th Avenue under the shadow of the Empire State Building.

It’s just some stupid sports bar—a glorified tourist trap—and she can’t figure out why he chose it aside from some misguided idea about the kinds of places Americans go to get plastered. She steps inside: it’s only an hour until last call and the place seems as deserted as HQ, with the exception of what are clearly two very drunk men at the end of the bar.

Ani recognizes one—she would know that shaved head anywhere—and the other is a little shorter and a little smaller, with a thatch of light brown hair.

Igor sees her first and she’s a bit ashamed of how warm her chest grows when his wide blue eyes light up at the sight of her.

“Ani!” he nearly bellows. “You are here!”

As she walks over to the bar, the other man looks her deliberately up and down in that way that only foreign—or very intoxicated—men do.

“Igor, man, you didn’t tell me how fucking hot she was,” he says in Russian.

Ani offers him a pointed stare. “And I guess he didn’t tell you that I know Russian, too?” she asks. Her accent is pretty rough, but she knows he’ll understand.

He only laughs and claps Igor on the shoulder. “Oh, fuck! Amazing!”

Igor has risen from his seat and comes closer to wrap her up in a huge hug. He’s wobbly and smells like vodka and it’s all she can do to hold him up.

“Ani, Ani,” he says against the side of her head as they sway back and forth a little. “I am glad you come.” He’s just holding her and she knows he’s drunk as fuck, but there’s still something kind of sweet about it, his unguarded display of affection. “The most beautiful Ani,” he murmurs, his arms pulling her in a little more.

After a moment he releases her, then with his arm still lightly curled around her waist, turns toward his friend.

“Ani, this is Tolya, my good friend since boys. You have a drink with us?” he asks, clearly excited by the prospect.

“Hey, Tolya, nice to meet you,” she says, in English and a bit friendlier this time, then glances back at Igor. “Yeah, so it’s really fuckin’ late and you’re really fuckin’ out of it and I think we need to get you home.”

Igor stands up a bit straighter—only to wobble a bit more—and narrows his gaze in mock offense. “Oh, you think because I have drunk, you can take me home, l am easy?” Oh fuck, she thinks, is he flirting? He’s so terrible at it that it’s almost funny.

“No, dumbass,” she says, “I’m not taking you to my house,” but even as she says it, there’s the thought of it threading through her mind: his sneakers sitting on her carpet, him collapsed in her bed, bare feet sticking out from under the blanket.

He doesn’t argue further and by the time the two Russians have paid their tab and gotten outside, it’s grown even later and more deserted out on the street. She and Igor walk Tolya to his hotel—only a block or so away—and then head for the subway entrance at the corner of Harald Square.

He’s unsteady on the stairs and can barely get his MetroCard through the reader, so she helps him, steering him with an arm around his solid middle.

The train, when it comes, is mostly empty. They have the car all to themselves.

And as they make their way to Brighton Beach, stop by stop, through Manhattan and finally into Brooklyn, his head begins to drop and then rests on her shoulder. “Beautiful Ani,” he mumbles, nearly asleep, as he curls closer towards her. She doesn’t push him back into his seat, but lets him stay there the rest of the ride home.

[send me a one-word Anora x Igor prompt]

[lafiametta]

hi! i just saw ur post in the anora x igor tag, i hope im not late for the one-word fic prompt 😊 my word : heart-shaped-sunglasses

To clarify, this is set post-Disney World trip ... It's a little angsty, but I hope you still like it!

After three days in Orlando, they drive a few hours south to see her mother in Miami. They won’t be staying long, just enough time to have lunch with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend, then turn around and start driving back. It seems strange—wouldn’t she want to see her mother for longer than an afternoon?—but she says it’s better this way and he doesn’t argue.

In the car, she puts on her playlist and sings aloud to nearly all of it. He smiles because she’s really a terrible singer, but she’s enjoying herself so much that it doesn’t matter. Maybe it was the trip, maybe it’s the warmth of the Florida sun, but she just seems happier, her eyes lighting up a little more easily.

After a little while, she wriggles out of her sandals and puts her feet up on the dashboard, bare legs on full display.

“Watch the road, you fuckin' pervert,” she says, laughing from behind her heart-shaped sunglasses.

Her mother lives in a condo in one of the high-rises off the beach. It's nice, maybe nicer than he would have expected, but as they're going up the elevator she explains that her mother's boyfriend owns it.

“Alan’s retired, but he was in property development or something. I don’t think she even pays any of the utilities.”

The front door opens to a petite, dark-haired woman in yoga pants and a drapey sweater. The resemblance is obvious, even though she’s a couple of decades older, with a deep tan and spidery lines around her eyes and the corners of her mouth.

“Baby!” she screams, and hauls her daughter into her arms. Once she’s done with Ani, she turns to him, looking him up and down before pursing her lips together. “What a big, strong man you’ve brought,” she murmurs in Russian.

They move to the living room, bright with mid-day sun from the balcony doors, while a gray-haired man in a polo shirt and chinos—Alan, he presumes—brings them all glasses of lemonade with far too much ice. He’s obviously not Russian, and Igor suspects they have little in common aside from the two women sitting next to them. Still, he does his best to be polite and attentive, sitting up straight and keeping his hands folded in his lap.

“So, where did you two meet?” Alan asks them, and he can see Ani freeze a little before covering it with a wide smile.

“Oh, just in the neighborhood,” she says. “Igor’s grandmother has lived there a long time and he came over from Russia to help take care of her.”

“And what do you do?” Alan says, turning towards him.

This is a question he should have been prepared for, and yet he has no idea what to say, especially not to this retired American in chinos who probably would not be so happy with having a man who does what Igor does sitting on his couch, drinking his lemonade.

“Igor’s in security,” Ani says, jumping in. “Right, baby?”

He nods. “Private security.”

“You still dancing?” Ani’s mother asks her, and there’s an edge to the words that even he can pick up on.

“You know I am, Ma.”

“It’s just... you know, you could be doing anything. With that face we could have gotten you into modeling or even acting. Not dancing in front of men—”

“Ma,” Ani warns, then pauses to soften her voice. “Can we not do this right now?”

“Okay, fine.” Ani’s mother rises from the couch, then puts her hands on her hips, glancing quickly at Alan. “Should we go eat, then?”

The lunch is good—there’s salmon and a big citrusy salad—and Igor tries to eat slowly, swallowing each bite before taking another. He lets Ani do most of the talking, which is fine except for the fact that he can tell the conversation with her mother is beginning to bother her. Some of the things her mother asks are harmless, questions about the neighborhood or old family friends, but they’re interlaced with more pointed ones, and even with his fairly limited scope of English Igor can pick up on the barbs. He can see Ani react to each one, the veiled criticisms presented as curiosity or just advice—about the upkeep of the house, the clothes she wears, the hours she keeps, the friends she sees. Ani’s trying to stay calm—he can see the way she's gnawing at her bottom lip—but there’s a defensiveness to her responses.

He doesn’t really know what to do—maybe there isn’t anything to do, and this is just the way things are between them—but it’s hard watching her be picked at, not when she’s done nothing to deserve it.

They’re almost done eating when he feels the vibration of his phone against his leg. He had set it to Do Not Disturb, with the exception of a single number—a neighbor who he asked to check in on his grandmother while he was gone—and so he excuses himself to take the call. It turns out to be nothing serious, just a question about where he put the pills he picked up for her at the pharmacy last week, but as he comes back through the hallway, he can hear Ani’s mother speaking in Russian, her voice hushed.

“—can’t help it if he looks like a hoodlum. Did you dance for him too? Is that where you found him?”

It turns quiet as he steps into the dining room and slips back into his seat. He’s sure they’re wondering how much of that he heard and he thinks maybe he should say something to clear the air. But it’s Ani that speaks first.

“You know, Ma, you always want to know why I don’t come visit. This is why. I haven’t seen you in nearly two years and you pull this shit—”

“—Anora.”

“No, I’m done. We’re fuckin’ done.” She stands up, throwing her napkin onto table. “Sorry, Alan.”

They don’t say anything as they ride the elevator back down. She’s clearly upset, her eyes wet even as she keeps her face tight and expressionless. They’re still inside the building, but she takes the heart-shaped sunglasses from her purse and slides them on, the dark lenses another mask to hide behind. Maybe she’s started crying; it’s hard to tell.

It hurts to see her like this, wounded by a person whose only job was to make her feel safe and wanted. They had spent the last three days being happy, and now it seemed tarnished, like something impossibly hard to get back.

They’re almost to the ground floor, but that doesn’t stop him from turning towards her and slipping his arms over her shoulders. There’s a breath and then she’s leaning in, hands curling around his waist. Her head is tucked under his chin and for a second they simply stand there, hearing nothing but the electronic chime of the elevator as it whisks them down and closer to being gone from this place.

“It’s okay,” he says, and hopes, at least for this moment, that it is.

[send me a one-word Anora x Igor prompt]

[lafiametta]

for the anora prompt : cuddle

When she finally kisses him, it’s almost by accident.

They’re cuddling on the couch, watching something stupid on TV, the afternoon slipping away in a haze of blankets and heavy limbs and quiet warmth, and she’s struck by how easy it all is, how nice it feels to be around someone she doesn’t have to perform for. It helps that Igor’s good at cuddling. He’s warm and solid and he lets her drape herself all over him, keeping her close with a weight of a single arm. Sometimes he’ll just hold her—she likes feeling small, burrowing into him like a place of refuge.

When he smokes, he'll hand her one, unless she's got her vape pen. There's not a video game controller in sight.

Today it's quieter than normal; Vera's at work and the neighbors next door with the sick baby have gone out somewhere. The volume on the TV is turned down a little—it's set to some reality dating show, not that she's really watching it—and there's only the occasional interruption as the train passes by behind them.

Ani's almost asleep when she feels him shift underneath her, stretching out a little, then relax back into place.

“Your tattoos,” he asks, "what are they for?”

It’s out of nowhere, but to his credit he sounds genuinely curious. From where he’s sitting, he probably has a good view of the ones on the back of her thighs. It’s not the first time he’s seen them, of course; sometimes she’s just in a t-shirt and sleep shorts when he comes over.

She shrugs. “They’re not for anything. I just liked them.”

Ani remembers the day she got them: her twenty-first birthday, as a gift to herself. They were a present, just like she was going to be a present, matching bows like she was being wrapped up for Christmas morning. She had flirted like crazy with the artists, getting two of them to work on her at the same time, and even through the pain she knew it was going to look fucking hot. And it did: her tips at the club went up, easily covering the cost of the ink.

“What, you think they’re dumb?”

“No, no,” he says. “Not dumb. I like them, too.”

They’re both quiet, with only the hiss of the radiator. For a second, the TV screen goes dark and a commercial comes on.

“What about the other ones, on your...” —he pauses, as if searching for the word— “your ribs?”

“The roses?” she asks, and he nods.

Ani hadn’t realized that he had seen those, although it was possible he had at some point when they were together. They weren’t as prominent as the ones on her legs, but like the bows they were a matching set: a rose on each side, red petals and green leaves against the expanse of her pale skin. They were older, too, gotten just after she turned eighteen, as soon as she could do it without needing her mother’s permission.

“They were for my grandmother,” she tells him, unsure of what else to say. “That was her name. Roza.”

He smiles a little. “That’s a nice name.”

“Yeah,” she says.

And there, cuddling with him on the couch, she remembers how it was, the smell of her grandmother's palov filling up the kitchen, the pinches of pistachio halva given to her like a secret, the soft feel of arms around her, murmured words to a song long forgotten, Anora, malyshka, Anora. When everything else in her life had seemed like too much—the fights with her mom, the screaming and slammed doors—her grandmother had been a haven. Until one day, when Ani was sixteen, and her grandmother was gone, with no warning at all.

It’s been a long time since she’s felt that safe.

But now, with him, she realizes, maybe she does.

She looks up at him, those wide blue eyes gazing down at her the way they always do, like she's a question and the answer all at once. Igor doesn't move, his arm still curled around her, patient and waiting.

But she's done waiting.

Ani slides closer, hands curling over his shoulders, and as their breaths meet and her mouth finds him it feels like coming home.

[send me a one-word Anora x Igor prompt]

[lafiametta]

okay i don't know why (maybe it's because i found it extremely hot too) but i feel like the first time ani started to be attracted to igor is when he smashed up the candy shop. something about the fact that he has the capacity to be that violent but as a person isn't. (or at least, isn't with/to her. we don't know what he's like when he's "working", whatever that entails)

Yeah, I totally see what you're saying, and it's interesting because it's after the candy shop scene that she's less openly hostile to him and doesn't seem to mind him being around her as much. I mean, she's upset about the scarf (mostly because she thinks he brought with the intention of using it on her again), but then she gives in and takes it. When they're watching Toros drive the SUV off the tow truck, she turns back and looks at him, like, “Hey, are you seeing this crazy shit, too?” And after Garnik vomits in the car, when Toros is cleaning up at the gas station, she directly addresses him (“Yeah, I'm not getting back in there”), as if she sees them both in the same boat, rather than continuing to dismiss him as dangerous or as a mindless henchman.

Because the candy shop is really the first time she's seen him in action, using his full destructive force. (She might claim in was in the living room, but there he was much more reactive, his assault on her no doubt terrifying, but not actively aggressive.) In this scene, though, he stops Tom in his tracks and easily disarms him (it's almost comically easy), then waits for Toros's instructions, like a leashed attack dog. Once Toros gives him the order, he goes to town, smashing gumballs and the popcorn machine and a glass case, before taking the aluminum bat and giving it a small, precise tap against one of the jars (which also shatters magnificently). As the audience, we weren't really prepared for this kind of direct violence — we haven't seen anything quite like this from Igor before, even though we know he was brought into the situation as a physical enforcer — and it's shocking and a little scary. (Maybe to offset the vibe, Igor's shown in the background of the remainder of the scene casually eating popcorn out of the broken machine.)

But none of this fazes Ani. The moment he finishes his destructive work, she's right behind him, advancing quickly on Tom and Crystal with a pointed finger directed on them, yelling at them to call Ivan. It's almost as if his aggressiveness sparked hers, like after watching him, she feels emboldened to unleash her own propensity for combativeness. I suspect (although it might be a bit of a stretch) that she actually finds his capacity for violence exciting and attractive, that is, when it's not aimed at her. There is also something to be said, as you pointed out, for the fact that while he has this capacity, it's only put into action when he's told to use it by his employer. For the rest of the movie, his body is still utilized, but mostly to aid or provide strength (like when he pulls Ani out of the fight, or carries Ivan down the courthouse steps). We don't really know what he does in terms of physical enforcement when he's otherwise “working” for Toros, and neither does Ani. She can probably imagine, though. And based on her reaction to him in the candy shop, I don't think she would find it entirely off-putting.