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nepthys-merenset · 4 months ago

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I got this idea for Dmitry and Lane's first kiss in my head, and basically couldn't rest until I got it out of my head. Sooo...here you go--my first fanfiction in literal years. Enjoy my delulu dreams!

Title: "A Search for Understanding"

Pairing: Lane x Dmitry [Heaven's Secret: Requiem]

Word Count: 1,595

Rating: T

Taglist: @rc-catalog

TW: Mild blood, mutual roughness.

“Sit.”

His keen blue eyes tracked her every movement as his voice, cold as ice, shattered the silence in the room. She closed the door gently, as if she could appease him by treating his office with care, and crossed the room, sinking into the chair in front of his desk. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest, surveying her silently. Waiting.

Unconsciously, her eyes swept over the desk. Spartan in its cleanliness, it showed that Dmitry—the General, she corrected herself, she had no right to familiarity with him—truly was a military man through and through. Three manila file folders, a letter opener, and a lamp were the only items on its surface.

Her gaze lingered on the letter opener.

Just in case.

*****

Dmitry had been a military man all his life, long before hellfire rained from the sky and the Horsemen of the Apocalypse walked the earth. The structure made sense to him—added order to his life. As the cataclysms worsened, military discipline and protocol went from rule of law to suggestion to mere relics of the past, but vestiges of the chain of command remained. He clung to the remnants, the last bits of his old life, even as his squad dwindled.

Some deserted, deciding to spend their remaining days with their families. Others were killed. Still more simply vanished, lost to the frozen wasteland.

The files of three such soldiers, their careers tersely summarized in manila folders, lay on his desk. One, he would unseal and finally label “killed in action” when he finished with Lane. Two others were still labeled “missing in action,” a hopeful gesture that he found increasingly inappropriate with every passing day.

He leveled his gaze at Lane. Things had made sense until that goddamn angel had pulled her from the Rift and forced him to save her life. No matter what new nightmare the apocalypse brought, no matter what thinly veiled resentment the immortals showed him on a daily basis, the chain of command between him and the human members of the squad made sense.

He was responsible for Anna, Greg, Lester, Nick, Noah, and the rest of the squad, and he trusted without question that they would obey him. That they respected him as a leader and wouldn’t turn on him.

But you—I can't trust you.

Lane unsettled him. Confused him. He found himself studying her often, trying to find meaning in her fleeting expressions and subtle glances. Sometimes, he could have sworn he saw a glint of red in her eyes, but he forced that thought down whenever it came to him. That was impossible, and besides—he couldn’t possibly be watching her closely enough to notice a thing like that.

Clearing his throat to attract her attention, he flicked the file on top of the pile open and roughly turned it in her direction. “Noah’s file. Years of immaculate service.”

A quick glance—brown, he noticed—before she looked down at the file. His gaze wandered to her lips, following their minute movements as she read.

Stop it.

“No issues worth documenting with any other squad members. And you claim he suddenly attacked you and Boris Romanov with a knife.”

More silence. She only frowned and shook her head slightly, as if to say, I already told you everything.

He cracked, slamming his open palm down over the file. “Explain yourself! What happened in that room?”

She looked at him fleetingly, before her gaze turned left, towards the letter opener—

My gun. She went for my gun the last time—

A quick rustle of fabric as she moved, and he exploded into motion, reaching for her.

*****

One push.

One push, and she would have the letter opener and her freedom. She launched herself upwards, out of the chair and onto the desk. One knee landed on the desk, the other foot planted firmly on the floor as she grasped wildly for the letter opener.

Her hand closed over it and she brought it to his neck just as his hands closed, viselike, over her wrists. She froze, her hand trembling as the vein below the letter opener pulsed with life.

One push and the life of the man who had saved hers would end.

Indecision paralyzed her. She would be free, but she would be alone. Without the one man who had managed to read her like a book and given her a place in this new world, however begrudgingly.

The blade shook, drawing blood. Her eyes strayed downward.

Red, she noticed. Not like mine.

Unwilling to either continue or relax her grip, she raised her eyes, meeting his cold blue stare. His hands loosened on her wrists but didn’t fall. There would be bruises tomorrow. Of that much, she was sure.

“You could do it,” he murmured, barely moving his lips. His life was in her hands, just as the key to unlocking her past could be in his. “But where would you go from there?”

Anywhere. Or nowhere.

She couldn’t say why she dropped the letter opener, or if it was even a conscious decision. Maybe it was a decision spurred by her longing for connection. Maybe it was the ephemeral memory of the night he’d helped her with her work. Or maybe it was her lost humanity, locked deep below layers of confusion and apathy. But regardless of reason, the blade slipped from her fingers, clattering to the desk with a lingering sense of finality.

Something had changed between them.

They moved as one, both filled with longing—one to understand why she couldn’t take that final step towards freedom, the other to understand why she was the one thing that disrupted the painstakingly maintained order of his life.

He stood, locking his arms underneath her as she raised her other leg, kneeling on the desk. Kicking his chair aside, he turned, pushing her roughly against the window as they thought, unaware, in sync—

I need to understand you.

Her hands tightened around his neck, bringing more blood—red—to the surface. As his life flowed over her fingers, their eyes met—brown and blue. Keen, both searching, both beginning to find what they sought. Answers.

There was nowhere else to go. The room was filled with a sense of inevitability as their lips crashed together in a demanding kiss. She gasped, a tiny little noise, as warmth flowed through her. Her fingers, sticky with his blood, tingled as she locked her hands behind his neck and forgot herself in his embrace.

Is this what it was like before? Before the Rift?

She felt like she was closer to understanding what she had lost—what she may have experienced before those three years had vanished from her life. In his arms, she felt the closest to alive than she had since Cain had pulled her from the Rift. Like a person who actually mattered to someone.

He grunted, adjusting his grip as her back rubbed against the cool glass behind her and her legs wrapped around his waist. He bit her lip sharply. Blood trickled down her chin as she gasped again, tangling her hands in his hair and pulling once, twice. First experimentally, then with force. All the while, their searching lips moved against each other.

A deep, appreciative sound rumbled through the General as he turned again, thrusting her back onto the desk without care. Blood dripped onto the covers of his missing soldiers’ files, marring his perfectly kept records. He didn’t care. He needed to understand her, and he knew he was getting closer.

One arm swept out, clearing the desk, and the lamp flew to the side and shattered against the wall. Consciousness returned along with the crash, loud and abrupt.

With a groan that felt like acknowledgement of the madness that had gripped them, Dmitry pulled back. Lane fought for breath, touching the blood on her chin. Both stared at the broken lamp, its shards glinting reproachfully in the dying sunlight.

What have you done?

He was still the man whose orders she may have to defy one day, the man she may have to betray eventually, to unlock the mysteries of her past.

She was still the woman who may have caused the disappearance of two of his soldiers.

And he was still her superior officer, a man with no order in his life except for the chain of command. His only remaining oath as a soldier.

She hardly dared to move, but she still slid from the desk, and they stepped away from each other. Her hand over her mouth, his hand on his neck. Breathing hard, eyes cautiously trained on each other. Their connection was undeniable, unavoidable, but the distance seemed insurmountable.

He deliberately looked away from her and said flatly, “we’ll discuss this later.” In a vain attempt to convince her that he meant her squadmate’s disappearance, he gestured at Noah’s file, askew on the floor, before dismissing her. “Go back to the estate.”

She didn’t believe him—she knew he wasn’t thinking about Noah right now—but she grasped at his words like a drowning woman would at a life preserver. She wasn’t ready to explore what had happened, either. But even as she agreed, doubt swirled in her mind. Was he her barrier, or her key?

“Yes, General.”

As she left the room, she glanced behind her. Dmitry dropped heavily into his chair, his head falling into his hands. Light reflected off of the bloody letter opener, still lying just out of his reach, and the door closed behind her.

They would have to continue searching for answers later.

#romance club #romance club fanfic #rc hsr #rc lane #rc dmitry #rc lane x dmitry #lane x dmitry

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nepthys-merenset · 4 months ago

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Here comes the third part of my Lane x Dmitry fic! This is a direct continuation of the first two, "A Search for Understanding" and "The Nature of Duty and Surprises".

Title: "Self-Preservation"

Summary: While giving Lane combat training lessons, Dmitry recalls his reason for doing so—the day he lost someone else he cared for.

Pairing: Lane x Dmitry [Heaven's Secret: Requiem]

Word Count: 4,305

Rating: E

Taglist: @rc-catalog

TW: Violence, original character death, minor character death, blood

Author's note: A morphine syrette is a metal tube with a small dose of morphine, topped with a needle protected by a metal cover. To administer the dose, a soldier or combat medic would insert the needle under the skin, then squeeze the tube. They would then clip the tube to the recipient's collar so anyone who came upon them next would know they'd been treated.

Self-Preservation

Standing in the training field with Dmitry, Lane felt like she was elsewhere: back in his office, caged in his arms, her back rubbing against the window panes, his lips roving over hers. She touched her lip, jumped a little as a twinge of pain from the bite he’d left shocked her back into the present. Somehow, it was more painful than whenever her scar was aggravated—but also, more pleasant. A reminder that she was alive, that something had happened.

“Are you all right?”

He was watching her closely, his eyes trained on her face.

“Yes.”

Just wondering if you’re going to acknowledge what happened last night.

He narrowed his eyes, looking away. As if giving up on something he’d hoped would happen, he began to walk in a wide circle around her, tramping the fresh snow into a level surface. She resisted the urge to turn with him, focusing on the sensation of the hairs on the back of her neck rising as he walked behind her.

“Why did you call me here today?”

“I told you—to run drills. You’re right, you’re not a soldier, but you are a member of this squad, and you need to know what to do in case of an attack.”

That’s not what I meant.

His words were cold, detached. She was almost grateful that he was behind her, so she wouldn’t have to see the look in his eyes. But as he returned to stand in front of her again, she had to stop herself from jumping again—he was looking at her so intensely, so searchingly, that it almost took her breath away.

“You’re very good at…using the weapons at your disposal,” he said carefully.

She remembered reaching for the letter opener, unsure if she was reaching for freedom or an answer to the tension between the two of them. Unsure if it had really been a weapon, or if it had been a tool to destroy boundaries she couldn’t push through on her own.

“But you may find yourself in a situation where there’s nothing you can use. And I want—” he stopped for a second, shaking his head almost imperceptibly “—you need to know what to do if that happens.”

I don’t know what to do now.

“You could just—”

“I’m not going to give you a gun.” Flat, final. But then he looked at her anew, one corner of his mouth lifting slightly in a wry smile. “I remember what happened last time you had a gun in your hands.”

“How does it feel to know that someone’s life is in your hands?”

“Bang!”

She shivered, then crossed her arms over her chest, hoping to disguise the gesture as a reaction to the cold. “Have you given these lessons to the rest of the squad?”

“They’ve already been trained. You’re the only one who spent their entire military career in a desk job.”

She wouldn’t get a better answer than that, but something deep inside of her knew.

He hasn’t. He wants me to be safe.

*****

Four years ago

“Be careful out there, all right?”

Pavel laughed openly, nudging Dmitry’s shoulder with his own. “Dima, please, enough already! I’ll be fine. It’s an easy patrol, just out and back from that boring old village. We barely even have to go outside the perimeter.”

Dmitry frowned, glancing across the yard at Pavel’s partner for the night—Nikolai, a young recruit who had only recently joined the squad. Pavel, as the more experienced one between the two of them, was meant to be showing him the ropes that night. He was right: it was an ideal mission for an inexperienced soldier. There hadn’t been any sightings of the Infected recently, and nothing had tripped their perimeter sensors in over a week.

“I hear you,” he said, still wary. “Just watch after Nikolai, and make sure he’s watching after you.”

Two hours out, one quick trip across the perimeter to circumvent a destroyed part of the village, and two hours back. A simple route any two soldiers could pull from the rotation every few days.

“I will. Don’t worry about us!” Smiling reassuringly, Pavel gripped his arm and gave him a small shake. “I’ll see you when I get back,” he said, before stepping back and flicking two fingers in a quick goodbye. Dmitry watched him go, chatting easily with Nikolai, until he was a speck on the horizon.

It should have been fine.

And yet, hours later, neither had returned. The transponders were silent, the squad’s messages all going unanswered. “There’s nothing we can do about it now,” said General Antonov gruffly. “We’ll have to send out a search party tomorrow morning.”

“General, I’d like—”

“Yes, fine, you can go. Tomorrow morning, and not a minute before then. I won’t risk more of you on an overnight search for two men.”

It’s going to be too late by then.

So he’d waited, tossing and turning in his bed, listening for his roommate’s breathing to even out enough for him to be confident that he was asleep. He couldn’t just leave Pavel out there overnight with only a brand-new recruit to watch his back, no matter what the General had ordered him to do.

*****

The General assessed her clinically, looking her up and down. She returned his gaze steadily, determined not to look away—he would have the upper hand physically in whatever they were about to do, but she wouldn’t allow him to intimidate her mentally anymore. Not after last night.

“You’re small—slender,” he said, sounding as if his mind was very far away. “You won’t be able to physically overpower many people, and certainly not one of the Infected, if you ever encounter one of them.”

“I don’t think my physical weakness is something I can turn into a strength,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him.

He barked out a laugh, surprised. “No, it’s not. You’ll have to rely on other things: speed, agility, the element of surprise. Using your opponent’s weight against them.”

“That’s where you come in, I suppose.”

“That’s where I come in. Follow me, now.”

He began to walk in a wide circle again, and this time, she mirrored him. Both poised, silent, the only sound in the training field coming from their boots against the snow. A small thrill of anticipation ran through her body.

“The most important thing for you is to keep moving, and to not let me touch you. If I can touch you, I can grab you, and I can put an end to this.”

An end, even before the beginning. Her mind felt like a swamp as she struggled to sort through her thoughts, but she knew one thing for sure: she didn’t want that.

She didn’t want him to put an end to...this. Too many questions still haunted her, but she was certain that she wouldn’t be able to answer them without him. Last night in his office had been the closest she’d felt to being alive since Cain had pulled her from the Rift—connected, confused, apprehensive, yearning for something for the first time in ages.

Feelings that she’d thought she’d lost had stirred in her chest, warming her from head to toe, enveloping her in a sense of tentative desire that she desperately wanted to explore.

But she needed to remember why she was still here: the Book. Figuring out what had happened to the Siberia base, what had happened to her, why she had lost three years of her life. Why she sometimes felt like she wasn’t herself anymore. Why her eyes sometimes flashed red in the mirror.

Not for him.

I might have to betray you and run someday, she thought as she continued to trace a wide arc through the snow, keeping her distance from him. I can’t forget that.

“When you’re ready, try to surprise me,” he said quietly, as if trying not to break her concentration.

Speed, agility, and the element of surprise. She tested the snow with the tip of her boot as she continued to move—still loose. Trying to move quickly, she abruptly kicked a flurry of snow at him, then rushed forward as he raised his hands to protect his eyes.

She wasn’t fast enough. He grabbed her, turned her, pressed her back against his chest. His warm breath ghosting over her ear, he said, “You gave yourself away. Can you tell me how?”

Experimentally, she shifted in his grasp, then froze as she felt his muscles tense and a sharp intake of breath. The training field fell silent, with only the sound of her ragged breathing disrupting the heavy quiet.

*****

Four years ago

He followed the sound of ragged gasping to the very edge of the perimeter in the abandoned village, his gun drawn. Everything in him wanted to hurry, but all he could see were two prone figures in the middle of the street. There was no way to tell who they were, or if whatever had attacked was still lurking nearby.

“I…w-wan…m-m-m-y…”

Nikolai.

Hating himself for the rush of relief that ran through him, he continued his cautious trek to Nikolai’s side. Drawing near, he quickly realized that there was no need to hurry: Nikolai was pale and glassy-eyed, his throat a ruin. His hand grasped weakly at a pad of bandages against the wound, still trying to stem the blood.

The Infected laying a few feet away, just past the range of the perimeter sensors, was already dead, one neat bullet hole in its forehead. Bright red blood froze on its chin and clung to its gnarled claws.

The contents of a soldier’s pack—Pavel’s—lay scattered by Nikolai’s side, along with the shattered remnants of one of their transponders. There was another wad of blood-soaked bandages haphazardly taped to his chest and a morphine syrette clipped to the last shreds of his collar. Pavel had followed his training: neutralized the threat, then tried to provide aid.

“M-m-momm—”

All he could do for now was try to help Nikolai. It was far too late to save his life—Dmitry had only basic training in field medicine, like most of the squad. He had been trained to apply pressure, give pain relief, and call for help. But they were too far away from help, and Nikolai was too far gone. There was too much of his blood soaking through the bandages and weaving wild scarlet patterns across the snow.

“Shh, shh, shh,” he soothed, crouching by Nikolai’s side and gently lifting an edge of the bandages. His chest was in ribbons. He probed the edges of one of the jagged wounds, noting hopelessly that Nikolai had no reaction to a touch that should’ve had him screaming, and sighed heavily.

“She’s here, she’s here. She’s right here.”

Nikolai gasped for air, blood pooling at the corner of his mouth as it continued to pump sluggishly out of his shredded throat and chest. Dmitry took another syrette, slid the needle into his arm. Squeezed the tube, then reached for Nikolai’s hand, stroking it reflexively with his thumb. At least he could do this.

“She’s right here. She says she loves you very much, and that it’s all right for you to come home now. Can you hear her, Nikolai?”

He could only hope that Nikolai was close enough to the edge to find comfort in his words, instead of realizing he was lying through his teeth.

“I—"

The words died on the young soldier’s lips. Nikolai’s face eased from its paroxysm of agony and his hand stilled in Dmitry’s grip. His head fell slightly to the side, his eyes dull and empty. His tortured gasping faded into the night, leaving nothing behind.

“Fuck,” he muttered, passing a hand over his eyes. He’d seen soldiers die before, but each time still felt like the first. Each time, he hoped it would never happen again—and each time, he hoped it would never stop affecting him when it inevitably did.

He reached out and closed Nikolai’s eyes, before standing and grabbing his transponder. “Night watch, come in. This is Lieutenant Colonel Ivanov, over.”

The transponder crackled to life, relaying the anxious voice of the private on duty. “Lieutenant Colonel? Where are you? The General said—”

“I was there, I heard him,” he said sharply. “I’m on the main street of the abandoned village. I found Nikolai��” he looked down at his free hand, still slick with the young man’s blood “—dead, along with one of the Infected. I haven’t found Pavel yet—”

“Lieutenant Colonel—”

“Enough.” Why was he even wasting time with this when Pavel was still out there? “I need some support. A medic with a body bag and two soldiers, at least. Send them now. Over.”

“But sir, it’s still—”

He switched the transponder off, shoving it back into his pocket. He was in for the disciplinary action of his life tomorrow, but for now, he had to focus on finding Pavel. His eyes swept warily down the silent street, and he took out his gun again before he froze.

A trail of staggering footsteps, interlaid with dark splashes of blood, marked a grim path past the last house, into the woods outside of the perimeter.

*****

Enclosed in his arms again, Lane tried to will herself to stay still. She knew he could feel her every movement. Every shallow breath, every minute shift, every quickening beat of her heart. He was right behind her, holding her gingerly by the wrists, his fingers slotting into her bruises—the bruises he’d left—and seemingly in no hurry to step back.

She exhaled, a long slow breath to clear her head, then said, “I can’t. I’m not sure...where I went wrong.”

Not sure how I ended up in this position again.

He nodded, and she held her breath again as she felt his stubbled cheek jostling her hair. “It’s your eyes—you lead with your eyes. You look left, then you go left.”

“I need to look where I’m going, General.”

“No,” he said slowly, “you don’t. You need to decide on a course of action, and then move. You don’t need to look exactly where you’re aiming. It’s a habit that’s only going to get you killed.”

She needed to focus on this conversation, or she was going to lose her head entirely.

“All right,” she said, hoping he would miss the faint note of desperation in her voice. “Let me try again.”

He seemed to suddenly remember where he was and what he was doing. Abruptly dropping her wrists as if scalded, he stepped back once, twice, as she turned to face him again. His face was a mask, as calm and impassive as she’d ever seen him.

“Try again, then,” he said coolly. “Remember to commit to your decisions without giving them away and try your best to avoid me.”

I am.

They settled into an easy rhythm, dodging, feinting, as he occasionally called out her moves in advance—“You’re looking to the right, I can tell what you’re planning”—and she tried to dull her instincts and simply trust her body. She had a vague suspicion that she knew exactly what her body wanted, and that it wouldn’t help her right now, but she had to try anyway.

Spotting an opportunity, she rushed forward, towards his left side. As he moved towards her, she waited for the exact moment his right thigh tensed to raise his foot before twisting to the right and pressing into his side with her full weight. It was enough to throw him off balance, and he fell back—but as he fell, he grabbed her arm, pulling her down with him.

They fell heavily into the snow together, and as it settled around them, Lane blinked, hardly believing that she was in this position again. On the ground, tangled up with him. Lacking a weapon, but less afraid than she had been the last time.

Looking up at her, Dmitry seemed to hardly breathe, still as a statue beneath her with both hands on her waist. Then he exhaled deeply, as if to settle himself, and said, “Your next move…would be to disable and run. Go for the eyes, nose, throat—sensitive parts of the body you can reach. There’s no such thing as a fair fight for your life.”

She nodded absently.

“But you need to do it quickly, before I—”

He brought his leg up, searching for a stronger foothold, and tensed his hands on her waist, before rolling over and forcing her onto her back.

“—do this.” Their positions reversed, he looked down at her, his hair falling into his eyes. “Now you’re exactly where I told you not to be.”

She bit her lip, hard, then winced as she felt the wound reopen and blood rise to the surface. His eyes flicked downward to her mouth, then he deliberately looked up to meet her eyes again as she said, “But I did manage to surprise you this time.”

“You did,” he agreed, his hands still resting on her waist. “That was better than your first try.”

The snow a soothing presence against her back, she lay still, trapped but feeling no urgency to free herself. This had happened several times, and he hadn’t hurt her yet—and each time, she felt like she was a little bit closer to understanding what she wanted from him. A little bit closer to breaking through the barriers hiding her past self from her.

But she wasn’t ready to plumb those depths yet, so she searched for a safer topic. “You said that I should try to disable next, so I can get up and run.”

“That’s right.”

“But that wouldn’t work with one of the Infected, would it?”

He sighed heavily, sitting back on his heels, then standing. Extending his hand down to her to help her out of the snow, he roughly brushed his hand down her back before he stepped back and said, “No, it wouldn’t. The Infected only have one goal—to kill. It’s not even really a desire, it’s just instinctual.”

Looking as if he was very far away, he continued: “They can’t be disabled or distracted. For as long as they’re alive and you’re in their sights, they will keep trying to kill you.”

She remembered what he had said about Pavel, his friend—his friend who had become one of the Infected. Who he’d then had to kill.

Tentatively, knowing she was probing the edges of a painful wound, she asked, “What would I do in that case, then?”

“You only have one option: to kill it before it kills you.”

*****

Four years ago

He led the way with his gun as he slipped between the trees. The darkness was nearly absolute, with the sickly glow of the full moon the only thing lighting his path. Whatever he was following, it was in here somewhere. Bleeding to death.

He followed the trail deep into the woods, losing hope with every step. Pavel would have never abandoned Nikolai to come into the woods, not even wounded and bleeding. He was a trained soldier—he knew what to do. Call for help and wait somewhere safe.

He was either following someone else entirely, or—

A sharp crack made him jump, and he looked around quickly—nothing—before looking down to see what he’d stepped on. Black plastic. Another of the squad’s transponders, marked with Pavel’s identification number.

He was in here. Badly injured, disoriented, without a way to—

A guttural moan, sounding like it was being forced from vocal cords that no longer knew how to speak, lashed around the trees.

Anything but this. Please, not you.

He stopped, pressing himself against one of the trees. Looked left, right—still nothing. Just the sound of a brutal death, reverberating through the lonely forest.

Wood screamed as claws ripped through bark—

It was right behind the tree he was leaning against—

His heart in his throat, he leapt forward, turned, aimed, fired—a glancing shot that ripped through its cheek, forcing it back a few steps.

There it stood, right in front of him. Wearing a coat he recognized.

Pavel. Pavel, with his cheek ripped open, his left arm hanging limply from a ravaged shoulder. Dead already, standing in front of him with nothing in his blackened eyes.

The Infected in the street had torn Nikolai apart with its claws, but it had bitten Pavel. Turned him into one of them.

He barely had time to think—anyone but you—before it was lunging for him, claws extended, screeching. Trusting his instincts, he jumped to the side, hissing as one of its claws hooked around his right arm just above his elbow and ripped a jagged, burning wound through his coat and flesh.

“Fuck!”

His fingers spasmed, and the gun dropped from his suddenly nerveless hand. Carried by his momentum, it flew across the path and clattered uselessly against a tree. And Pavel—it—kept coming for him, not reacting in any way to the fact that he was now disarmed, helpless.

It collided with his chest, knocking him down. With a burst of self-preservation, he raised his knee and thrust his left hand forward, pressing back against its waist and throat with all his strength as he tried to will his right hand to work for him. Scrabbling for something, anything, he could use to force the thing that used to be his best friend away from him.

His hand closed around a heavy rock, and he brought it up before he had time to even begin to think about what he would actually have to do with it. Smashed it against Pavel’s head. Again, and again, and again.

The weight of its body left his chest, but it still reached for him, snarling.

He pressed his advantage, pinned it down with his knees, one on each side of its body. Brought the rock down again as two claws dug into his left forearm. Flecks of something white, tinged with black sickness, flew through the clearing.

Again.

He had never realized how much force it would take to damage a human skull enough to destroy the brain protected inside.

Again.

Its movements slowed. It no longer reached for him with any level of strength, instead just grasping for him mechanically.

He leaned away, still clutching the gore-smeared rock.

Watching one of the Infected die was different from watching a human die. There was no breath to still in its chest. No warmth to leach from its skin. No light to dim in its eyes, and no desperate desire to live. Even now, in its death throes, its twisted fingers still reached for him convulsively. Still seeking his death, even with its skull nearly caved in.

“I’m sorry, Pasha.”

A whisper, wrenched from the deepest, most hidden part of his heart.

He stood. Found his gun. Chambered a round, aimed, fired one more shot. This one, perfect.

Silence settled over the forest again as its guttural snarls abruptly cut off, and Dmitry stared down at it, panting, his mind empty. Blood coursed down his arms, mixing with the black gore and brain matter spattering the ground.

Pavel was gone. Dead by his hands.

He collapsed against one of the trees, gripping his hair with both hands, and he screamed.

*****

Pavel’s dog tag, having worked its way free from Dmitry’s clothing, caught her gaze as it glinted dully in the early morning sunlight.

They must have been close, she thought, unsure of what to say next. He wouldn’t wear just anyone’s dog tags. That’s not something you just do for someone you don’t care deeply for.

She took a deep breath, remembering her conversation with Greg a few days ago—he’d criticized her for not even trying to understand him in the wake of Nick’s disappearance. He’d been right: she didn’t understand, not really. She just knew, on an intellectual level, that it was difficult to lose a friend. No feelings had stirred in her heart back then, no real desire to connect.

This was different. She wanted to understand now—both herself, and him. She needed to do more, to try to be better, to try and connect with the missing parts of herself and with him.

And so she reached out a tentative hand, and offered a quiet, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

He looked at her sharply, a quick look of surprise crossing his face, before he shook his head and said, “It was a long time ago.” Then, he sighed minutely, and continued: “It’s important for you to know these things.”

She nodded, her eyes wandering to his neck again. Red flashed against silver—the wound she’d left last night must have reopened during their sparring match. He hadn’t seemed to have noticed, so she would have to draw his attention to it—to what she had done.

“General, your neck,” she said cautiously, watching him intently as he raised a hand to the bandage, then examined his bloody fingers. He was quiet, spearing her with an intense look.

Feeling as if she was about to jump from a cliff, she returned his gaze steadily and said, “I could help you re-bandage it.”

His eyes narrowed slightly as he continued to look at her, so searchingly that she nearly gave in and looked away before he nodded briefly. “All right. Let’s go back to my office.”

Both hoping they weren’t making a mistake, they left the training field together—back to the place where their search for understanding had begun.

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