response #2 to challenge #63
Yeesh, it's like I kicked off the training wheels and can't be pulled off my bike. But I'll just crash it and take myself home now.
The True Measure of Love
A/N: This is the scene I would donate organs to see depicted on screen. No anaesthetic would even be needed-just a widescreen and a DVR if you please. But since this is a drabble, I could only just get it started-I think I’m doing everyone a favor by keeping it this short.
Season 4+, post-“Before the Flood.”
Of all the gin joints, in all of the towns, in all of the world, she had to walk into mine.
The quote burbles up unbidden into Katya’s mind. But she can’t keep a smile off her lips when she looks over at the monitor to see Saleh patting down her youngest sister. Out comes the Beretta, the derringer and the switchblade, and Irina hands them over casually. Katya watches intently-the old, ivory handled dagger she knows Irina keeps somehow escapes his polite but forceful scan-as Irina walks out of the camera’s eye to a table in the corner, near the fireplace, but not before casting an eye up to Katya as she walks out of the frame.
It’s January in Kharsadda and there isn’t a warm room for 2000 kilometers in any direction, but this filthy goatherd watering hole in the Punjab is where Katya’s been hiding out. Not very successfully, as it’s been swept so many times by the CIA or the Pakistan intelligence goons the last two months, she’s started a running tab for the idiots. She wonders for a moment if Jack has tipped Irina off, but realizes it doesn’t matter. Katya makes a quick mental inventory-the exits, the weapons stash, whether or not the local toughs are due to swing by later for baksheesh and a round of cards. She rises and puts on her shawl to head downstairs-there’s no reason for Irina to get herself foolishly caught in a sweep.
As she passes the stockroom, she snatches a liter bottle of the worst vodka she can tolerate and heads downstairs. Katya has gone out of her way to avoid this confrontation since being released from CIA custody, before Sevogda and Elena. She had been telling herself for months to give Irina time to recover, get re-established, time to return to the land of the living, but Katya knew she’d been fooling herself--the course of denial flowed as it always did, and it had finally washed her sister to her shore.
But this visit had nothing to do with weapons sales or their dead sister, may she roast in the hottest furnace of hell. Once again, and perhaps for the last time, they would have it out over a man. Jack Bristow had been an jaded experiment, perhaps with a more voyeuristic bent than Katya typically engaged in. His looming presence in her little sister’s life had held more sway and changed all their lives in ways that--even with his startling intellect--he would never see. But Katya never should have gone looking for answers about Irina in the arms of her greatest love-Jack didn’t even trust his own instincts about Irina to know he had killed a proxy.
She and Irina had stopped talking years ago after Gerard Cuvee, that wrinkled excuse for a monkey’s penis, had made an example of Katya. She’d come home from Pyongyang after a failed meet with a contact of Irina’s to find her lover hanging from the rafter of her Paris loft as if he’d been engaged in autoerotic asphyxiation. The death itself hadn’t surprised her terribly, but the pleasure Cuvee had taken in doing it sealed his eventual fate--she had recognized the scarf around Yevgeny’s beautiful, swanlike neck as one of Gerard’s. As she turns the doorknob to enter the bar, Katya wonders if since her return from the dead, Irina has yet learned of Gerard Cuvee’s unfortunate demise at the hands of a Berlin dominatrix. Katya never would have killed him when Irina was alive, but she’d held out hope over the years that Irina would have done it for her, as a loving sister might.
When she opens the office door, she spots the usual suspects sitting at the bar, and Pundoo is doling out his usual love advice to the bored and drunk, as he rubs the trunk of his beloved statue of Ganesh. “You see Ganesh’s trunk? It is the extension of our mind, our ability to understand what the difference between what is real and unreal. This applies to love as well-you have a much bigger organ to work with if you are willing to put aside your fears, understand and grasp real love, not just hiring a false version of it for a moment’s thrill.”
No one is paying much mind to Irina as she leans over the fire, even though she is glaringly out of place--so tall, so wildly beautiful, her hair glowing in the firelight. Everyone knew better than to pay a glance in Irina’s direction--to a man, they all watch Katya for a cue out of the corner of their eyes. But she is carefully, warily watching her sister. Irina’s face is turned to the fire, but her eyes are closed. Katya can tell she is collecting herself.
Katya stops near the table, and prepares to let the bottle thunk onto the table to announce her presence, to buy herself perhaps a half-second of reaction time before Irina can throw a knife. But Irina moves slightly, turning away from the fire and simply cocking her head to one side to regard Katya. Without dropping her eyes, Irina takes a step closer and reaches out to Katya, touching the edge of the pashmina shawl and rubbing the fabric between her fingers thoughtfully.
“You could have saved me the trouble of paying off the CIA if you’d killed me a few months ago,” Katya trills nonchalantly. “I’m not making the kind of living I am used to in this shithole country.”
“One dead sister is fine for now,” Irina answers quietly. “As for the CIA, that’s no longer my problem. It's yours.” She pauses, dropping the shawl, and smiles her usual Cheshire grin at her sister. “They are a costly habit.”
“Here, this will warm you--” Katya hands Irina a glass, and Irina raises it in a toast.
“To Jack, handsome ass that he is.” Irina drains the glass, holding it out for a refill and looking directly into Katya’s eyes. “I had hoped he was outside of your age demographic. Did I overestimate Jack, or underestimate you?”
“Call it a statistical outlier.” She drains her own and then refills them both, touching Irina’s wrist gently, pretending to hold it steady. “Are you wearing Nana’s dagger?”
“Elena took it from me and I didn’t get a chance to get it back. I just wish I could have gutted her with it.” Irina downs another glass and shudders. “That piss vodka is terrible-don’t you have anything better?”
“Let’s go upstairs and talk.” Katya puts a hand on Irina’s shoulder, which feels bonier and yet softer and more fragile than she expects, and leans carefully in, close to her sister’s ear. “If you were coming to kill me, I wish you’d do it here-it’s warmer next to the fire and you’d get out before these lice-infested drunks could do anything.”
Irina laughs. “I’d no more kill you over having sex with my husband than a lousy arms deal to the Koreans. Please, Katyushka-“ Irina hisses. She grabs both of Katya’s shoulders tightly enough to leave marks. “I have been released back into the world, reborn yet again, all alone. I need some family for myself. I need to connect to something real again.” There are no tears in Irina’s eyes, only simple, profound need.
Katya takes both Irina’s hands into hers. They are like ice and Katya clasps their hands together tightly to warm them. “Upstairs, then. I’ve got proper vodka up there.” She leads them back to her office door, still holding Irina’s hands, suddenly feeling brighter than the summer sun. There was still hope for them both--Katya nearly pushes Irina up the stairs in excitement.
“Let us drink and talk, and make asses of men. Then perhaps we can understand love, or at least finally discover which one of us actually has the bigger trunk.”
The True Measure of Love
A/N: This is the scene I would donate organs to see depicted on screen. No anaesthetic would even be needed-just a widescreen and a DVR if you please. But since this is a drabble, I could only just get it started-I think I’m doing everyone a favor by keeping it this short.
Season 4+, post-“Before the Flood.”
Of all the gin joints, in all of the towns, in all of the world, she had to walk into mine.
The quote burbles up unbidden into Katya’s mind. But she can’t keep a smile off her lips when she looks over at the monitor to see Saleh patting down her youngest sister. Out comes the Beretta, the derringer and the switchblade, and Irina hands them over casually. Katya watches intently-the old, ivory handled dagger she knows Irina keeps somehow escapes his polite but forceful scan-as Irina walks out of the camera’s eye to a table in the corner, near the fireplace, but not before casting an eye up to Katya as she walks out of the frame.
It’s January in Kharsadda and there isn’t a warm room for 2000 kilometers in any direction, but this filthy goatherd watering hole in the Punjab is where Katya’s been hiding out. Not very successfully, as it’s been swept so many times by the CIA or the Pakistan intelligence goons the last two months, she’s started a running tab for the idiots. She wonders for a moment if Jack has tipped Irina off, but realizes it doesn’t matter. Katya makes a quick mental inventory-the exits, the weapons stash, whether or not the local toughs are due to swing by later for baksheesh and a round of cards. She rises and puts on her shawl to head downstairs-there’s no reason for Irina to get herself foolishly caught in a sweep.
As she passes the stockroom, she snatches a liter bottle of the worst vodka she can tolerate and heads downstairs. Katya has gone out of her way to avoid this confrontation since being released from CIA custody, before Sevogda and Elena. She had been telling herself for months to give Irina time to recover, get re-established, time to return to the land of the living, but Katya knew she’d been fooling herself--the course of denial flowed as it always did, and it had finally washed her sister to her shore.
But this visit had nothing to do with weapons sales or their dead sister, may she roast in the hottest furnace of hell. Once again, and perhaps for the last time, they would have it out over a man. Jack Bristow had been an jaded experiment, perhaps with a more voyeuristic bent than Katya typically engaged in. His looming presence in her little sister’s life had held more sway and changed all their lives in ways that--even with his startling intellect--he would never see. But Katya never should have gone looking for answers about Irina in the arms of her greatest love-Jack didn’t even trust his own instincts about Irina to know he had killed a proxy.
She and Irina had stopped talking years ago after Gerard Cuvee, that wrinkled excuse for a monkey’s penis, had made an example of Katya. She’d come home from Pyongyang after a failed meet with a contact of Irina’s to find her lover hanging from the rafter of her Paris loft as if he’d been engaged in autoerotic asphyxiation. The death itself hadn’t surprised her terribly, but the pleasure Cuvee had taken in doing it sealed his eventual fate--she had recognized the scarf around Yevgeny’s beautiful, swanlike neck as one of Gerard’s. As she turns the doorknob to enter the bar, Katya wonders if since her return from the dead, Irina has yet learned of Gerard Cuvee’s unfortunate demise at the hands of a Berlin dominatrix. Katya never would have killed him when Irina was alive, but she’d held out hope over the years that Irina would have done it for her, as a loving sister might.
When she opens the office door, she spots the usual suspects sitting at the bar, and Pundoo is doling out his usual love advice to the bored and drunk, as he rubs the trunk of his beloved statue of Ganesh. “You see Ganesh’s trunk? It is the extension of our mind, our ability to understand what the difference between what is real and unreal. This applies to love as well-you have a much bigger organ to work with if you are willing to put aside your fears, understand and grasp real love, not just hiring a false version of it for a moment’s thrill.”
No one is paying much mind to Irina as she leans over the fire, even though she is glaringly out of place--so tall, so wildly beautiful, her hair glowing in the firelight. Everyone knew better than to pay a glance in Irina’s direction--to a man, they all watch Katya for a cue out of the corner of their eyes. But she is carefully, warily watching her sister. Irina’s face is turned to the fire, but her eyes are closed. Katya can tell she is collecting herself.
Katya stops near the table, and prepares to let the bottle thunk onto the table to announce her presence, to buy herself perhaps a half-second of reaction time before Irina can throw a knife. But Irina moves slightly, turning away from the fire and simply cocking her head to one side to regard Katya. Without dropping her eyes, Irina takes a step closer and reaches out to Katya, touching the edge of the pashmina shawl and rubbing the fabric between her fingers thoughtfully.
“You could have saved me the trouble of paying off the CIA if you’d killed me a few months ago,” Katya trills nonchalantly. “I’m not making the kind of living I am used to in this shithole country.”
“One dead sister is fine for now,” Irina answers quietly. “As for the CIA, that’s no longer my problem. It's yours.” She pauses, dropping the shawl, and smiles her usual Cheshire grin at her sister. “They are a costly habit.”
“Here, this will warm you--” Katya hands Irina a glass, and Irina raises it in a toast.
“To Jack, handsome ass that he is.” Irina drains the glass, holding it out for a refill and looking directly into Katya’s eyes. “I had hoped he was outside of your age demographic. Did I overestimate Jack, or underestimate you?”
“Call it a statistical outlier.” She drains her own and then refills them both, touching Irina’s wrist gently, pretending to hold it steady. “Are you wearing Nana’s dagger?”
“Elena took it from me and I didn’t get a chance to get it back. I just wish I could have gutted her with it.” Irina downs another glass and shudders. “That piss vodka is terrible-don’t you have anything better?”
“Let’s go upstairs and talk.” Katya puts a hand on Irina’s shoulder, which feels bonier and yet softer and more fragile than she expects, and leans carefully in, close to her sister’s ear. “If you were coming to kill me, I wish you’d do it here-it’s warmer next to the fire and you’d get out before these lice-infested drunks could do anything.”
Irina laughs. “I’d no more kill you over having sex with my husband than a lousy arms deal to the Koreans. Please, Katyushka-“ Irina hisses. She grabs both of Katya’s shoulders tightly enough to leave marks. “I have been released back into the world, reborn yet again, all alone. I need some family for myself. I need to connect to something real again.” There are no tears in Irina’s eyes, only simple, profound need.
Katya takes both Irina’s hands into hers. They are like ice and Katya clasps their hands together tightly to warm them. “Upstairs, then. I’ve got proper vodka up there.” She leads them back to her office door, still holding Irina’s hands, suddenly feeling brighter than the summer sun. There was still hope for them both--Katya nearly pushes Irina up the stairs in excitement.
“Let us drink and talk, and make asses of men. Then perhaps we can understand love, or at least finally discover which one of us actually has the bigger trunk.”