Privāta firma- 'Private Company'

[man_nav_naudas]

WHO: Ivan and Raivis
WHEN: September 18th, Friday evening (Back to the future~)
WHERE: The Braginski apartment
WHAT: "Make your offering by the door, but once you enter the Russian's den, you'll not be seen no more..."
RATING: K, Kolkolkol. Not for 'kids'.

Comments

[man_nav_naudas]

Fighting an instinctual flinch at the tone there was potentially the most exemplified example of self control that Raivis had thus far experienced. It took every bit of focus to keep himself still and unaffected and even then, that wasn't quite enough to bar the shaking from returning to his hands. He'd be tearing holes into his shirt if he wasn't careful, but dear God, was it difficult. "O-oh, I... I'm s-sorry..."

He was, truly. For a multitude of reasons. Regretful that he continued to inspire some form of ire in the Russian, apologetic that perhaps he had in fact interrupted a period of quiet contemplation and- most disturbing still, the bit he was perhaps sorriest for, was the suspicion that so much time spent under fear of Ivan seemed to have fine tuned his comprehension of the nuances of the man's mood shifts. Rarely had he seen Ivan cheerful, but he knew the difference between smiles. Indifferent. Content. Angry. Angry as hell. Murderous. Pleased. Pleasantly homicidal. Depressed.

Irritated.

No. Nonono.
Definitely not something he was going to continue contemplating. Not with that Look lancing into him, fierce enough to make his cheeks burn with shame. What mattered was that he was perceptive enough not to ignore such a blatant hint. His gaze strayed back to the box, his weight shifting between feet as he began to inch away.

Stopped, when he saw that there was a beer bottle peeking out from among the vodka.

Raivis nervously shuffled back toward the coffee table, plucking the oddity from the bunch. "Y-you must be tired, I-I won't um, I'll... I-I'll g-g-g-go now..."

I AM HERE TO MAKE YOU UNCOMFORTABLE.

[das_vedanya]

The Psychiatrist bit the inner-wall of his cheek to keep the ”you’d better be” from getting anywhere beyond forming on his lips. His brows furrowed contemplatively as he planned his next move. Before he could come to a proper mean of attack, Ravis beat him to it with the decision to leave.

"Y-you must be tired, I-I won't um, I'll... I-I'll g-g-g-go now..." The first portion of the statement wasn’t essential, as it was the latter Ivan concentrated the most on. As instinct compelled him to, Ivan smiled and paced toward Ravis’s back in a agonizingly slow manner… so Ravis could see Ivan’s shadow swallow up his shoulders. Only when standing properly behind the boy did Ivan take notice of how petite he really was. The therapist had grown terribly accustomed to seeing the Latvian seated behind the secretary’s desk, but the negligible difference it made in terms of inches on the barrel of his chest versus his middle-stomach was humorous to say the least.

Ivan slanted forward on his toes, hands behind his back much like they were bound there by a rope, and leaned uncomfortably close to the younger’s ear. "Ravis, do correct me if I'm wrong, but... isn't the drinking age in America Twenty-one? I believe that... your application for the office told me you were nineteen…” The overpowering scent of Vodka laced Ivan’s breath like a poison, enough so that inhaling too much of it would probably intoxicate. He was so close to Ravis that, if he were to part his lips, they would most-likely tickle the hairs on the shell of Ravis’s ear.

There was only one person he was this close to, and at this sudden thought, Ivan leaned back onto the balls of his feet for the sake of keeping it that way.

“I think it would be best if you remained here… unless you wish to abandon that bottle of beer with the rest of my Vodka.”

OH I'M UNCOMFORTABLE ALRIGHT.

[man_nav_naudas]

When at last the world ended and the final breath was drawn, Raivis had often wondered, nestled beneath shadowed bedsheets, what the sky would be like at the culmination of man's eradication. As his eyes closed and sleep's silvery tendrils squeezed consciousness from his mind, there would be a fleeting glimpse of crimson and a dream scape night transformed into a sky of red and an endless ocean of flames.

Now-

As Robert Frost had once too pondered on the nature of an Armageddon, Raivis found his intestines churn from the chill seeping through his body. Yes, Mister Frost had had the right idea, he himself had been so very, tragically wrong-

For though the world dwelt on hot desire, and held its favor with an end of fire, in the dark of towering sin and vice, he knew it now that such skies would be not red but blue above an earth of ice.

His neck burned at the almost contact, not unlike the harshness of frost bite. He wasn't even certain if his ear was still attached, for the closer Ivan had become, the quicker a sensation of numbness had crept over his flesh. The Russian was a spire, an obelisk. He was a symbol of domination, tall enough that Raivis felt if the man was so inclined, he could crush him with a half hazard grind of a heel.

The latvian was, essentially, falling apart right in front of his employer, shivering violently as he clutched the beer close to his chest.

That breath rustling his hair with such deceptive delicacy...

He inhaled as much as his lungs could take without retching, willing himself to still- hush, Raivis, hush- as words fell against his flesh. It lingered, even as Ivan rocked back, put vague distance between them.

"I think it would be best if you remained here..."

The rest of it, that was lost. All Raivis could seem to do now was nod, clutch the bottle, and slowly, slowly, God so slowly, turn around.

"...Y-yes, sir."

EXCELLENT~

[das_vedanya]

“Good boy,” Ivan placed a excessively firm hand on Ravis’s shoulder and squeezed it, which to an outsider, would look similar to the same gesture a father would give his son, but to Ravis and Ivan meant something more along the lines of possessiveness. They brushed shoulders (shoulder and elbow to be precise) when Ivan bypassed the boy to retrieve the can opener in the leftmost kitchen drawer. The can opener was located… conveniently in the same drawer that Natalia kept her spare knives - the same ones that she used to kill all of the rats that scurried around their apartment - and Ivan made sure to set out one, two, three of the knives out on the counter so Ravis could see them while he searched for the only object in that drawer that couldn’t… easily kill someone.

Ivan much preferred his pipe, of course.

The Russian pried the cap off of the Vodka bottle (nothing beat traditional Russian vodka bottles! The caps were irreplaceable, making the immediate draining of vodka proper etiquette.) The bottle hissed and sighed the moment the cap clamored to the countertop and Ivan’s smile only widened.

He held his hand out for the beer between Ravis’s arms and chest… the way he held it reminded Ivan of a cat clinging to a piece of driftwood in white water.

Wait, I think I've seen you somewhere before... America's Most Wanted, perhaps?

[man_nav_naudas]

Raivis choked on air, choked back a sob when the squeeze became strong enough he knew a bruise would remain where the contact would not. Deep blue that would transition into a violet disturbingly similar to frigid, Russian eyes.

That were, mercifully, trained elsewhere, scanning a drawer for- was... was that a... were those Natalia's knives?- presumably something to open the bottles w- ah, yes, and there it was. The can opener. An item that really shouldn't have been as heart-stopping terror evoking as it currently was. Those massive hands were the equivalent of a Michelangelo among the potentially homicidal- anything they touched appeared to be sculpted from a nightmare.

It brought little comfort to him that they weren't still attached to his shoulders. Not when they were now busied with something sharp.

Ivan held out his hand with an impossibly wide smile and Raivis briefly entertained the notion of leaping out the window. Diving under the coffee table. Throwing the bottle elsewhere as a distraction and darting away before he could be reprimanded...

The beer found its way from Raivis's desperately gripping fingers, shaking violently as it came to rest against Ivan's cool palm. "Th-tha..."

Standstrong, stand strong, standstrongstandstrongohgodohgodohgod... The Latvian youth clutched at his shirt sleeve as he tried staring down the wall just slightly past Ivan's elbow.

Walls weren't threatening. They were... nice and stable and still and quite wonderfully walls.

"Th-thank you, s-s-s-sir..."

Nyet. It was Russian Idol.

[das_vedanya]

“You’re welcome,” he replied off-handedly while the bottle opener pried the metal cap, arching it off of the bottle’s lip and watching it rattle to the countertop. His nostrils flared at the smell of that curdling scent and he quickly rid himself of it by practically shoving the bottle back into the Latvian’s arms.

Once his hands were vacant, he occupied them with the Vodka bottle. His left hand searched through the cabinet level to his head for one of the crystal glasses on the second shelf up to fill it half-full, or half-empty, with the monochrome liquid.

And he wasted no time in downing that glass - fast.

It burned from lips to stomach, but damn, that burning felt wonderful. Like a thousand hot coals running, scraping down his throat, but… the effects were working. His brain was slowly succumbing to a numbing haze.

Good old Russian Vodka… never a disappointment.

You... you can SING?

[man_nav_naudas]

Strange how the bottle in his hands had at one moment been filled with beer and the next, seemed to be as poisonous as Ivan's sneer of disgust. The expression itself was enough to curb any sort of appetite he might have had for the drink- over a week without a single drop had left him somewhat morose at Logan's constant offers and his unfortunately equally as prevalent declines. It looked innocent. A nice foam, a good, heady aroma. The sight and smell of a good Latvian beer should have made the situation marginally more bearable.

Instead, it made his stomach curl from nausea and his eyes glisten with moisture.

Ivan himself, of course, was having no difficulty with the vodka, a fact which, despite his rapidly escalating level of paranoid fear, made Raivis somewhat proud. At the very least, he could do something right.

Just-
What to do about the beer? There was nothing more rude than having a drink opened by one's host only to have it refused. No. No, Raivis was not a horrible guest- unwilling as he may have been- so, with a hesitance he attempted very diligently to hide, he raised the mouth of the lager to his lips and slowly took a long, deep gulp.

As long as they kept drinking and conversation remained buried under alcoholic hazes, maybe he had a chance for survival...

That small bit of Curiosity that was constantly whispering in his ear, however, was mighty interested in the way the Russian was taking everything in. Hard and fast. With the ease of a seasoned drinker and what was more, with the rapidity of a veteran who was trying to forget.

Raivis held his breath, opened his throat, and downed the rest of Brālis gaišais while he suppressed the desire to gag. There. No more beer. No more drinking.

Freedom.

He tapped a few fingers against the cool glass and politely murmured a soft, "I-it seems I'm out, sir. P-perhaps I sh-should umm, l-leave...?"

And Tapdance.

[das_vedanya]

It was growing increasingly difficult to suppress that little demon stirring in Ivan’s stomach. The vodka made it more bearable to offset, but, like an Inca god begging for another sacrifice, it demanded more - more - more so the deceivingly dormant volcano wouldn’t erupt. Was that what he was…? A volcano? The Russian’s smile trembled and he slammed the glass against the counter without a single regard as to whether it would lead to having to pick glass out of the carpet… again…

“You will do no such thing…” Ivan hissed while his hunched figure settled against the lip of the countertop, braced by his right hip. He canted his hip with enough force to push his frame off, passed the bar with the low-hanging lamps. The light bulb in the leftmost lamp flickered, caused the Doctor to shudder in retort to a quantity of painful reminiscences.

“You can’t expect me to drink all of this by myself,” his voice dropped an octave in mid-sentence, scarcely noticeable over the ticking of the sunflower-shaped clock over the refrigerator. “I’m a recovering addict,” he practically laughed out the last word as if it were the punch line to the world’s funniest joke. His lavender, half-lidded eyes settled on the quivering Latvian with an expression that would remind someone of the Big Bad Wolf about to swallow Little Red Riding Hood whole.

Dr. Braginsky pushed the bottles of Vodka across the countertop, toward his secretary. His expression read something that widely resembled the phrase ’Your Move.’

Goddamn- where was my VCR when I NEEDED IT?

[man_nav_naudas]

Raivis literally jumped at the hard contact of glass to counter- a half an inch off the ground that he almost wished he could simply put more of between himself and the floor- spread his arms and just fly far, far away.

Because the touch of his heels back on solid support made him feel chillingly vulnerable. There was a palpable aching in his arms as though they had been clipped- wings made useless possibly long before he'd made so much as a step inside this gilded cage, willingly lead in by the hungriest, grinning Cheshire cat.

'You'll do no such thing...' Not run. Not breathe. Not smile or feel warmth ever again. If Raivis had been dipped into a bath of ice water and forced to lie there until the last cube melted, even then that numbing, endless sensation of cold would have been hotter than the sibilance that passed from Ivan's lips.

The pleading Don't come near, please don't come near in Raivis's posture did not appear to register with the Russian. Almost as though to spite it, he was pushing away from the counter, ambling closer with a horrifying half laughter punctuating the snarled 'Addict'.

'Tweet' went the little red robin- a soft, terrified sob- as bottles were pushed toward him and the heavy weight of Ivan's gaze crashed down upon his soul.

With hands that were shaking to the near inability to do anything but tremble, Raivis reached toward one. Gripped it, raised it, held it there suspended before his lips. His fingers danced awkwardly along the cap.

He cautiously tried prying at it. Slipped. Tried again.

And again.
And... again.

Is this not why we have TiVO?

[das_vedanya]

It was both amusing and frustrating watching Ravis try to loosen the cap off of that bottle; Amusing because… any degree of torment toward the Latvian just meant delight for Ivan and frustrating because it either meant Ravis was trying to stall (intentionally or unintentionally - it didn’t matter) or buy enough time to get Ivan to just throw him out in a vent of frustration.

So, with that paradox of emotion carving intricate little curves into Ivan’s lips, he liberated the bottle from the shorter’s sweaty grip and separated cap-and-bottle with another trademark hissssss…

He paused, considered taking that bottle for himself (after all~ that effort it took to get that cap off!), drawing nearer…

…nearer…

…and closer still…

…en route for his lips.

“Ah,” he covered his mouth with the back of his hand and held it out for Ravis to take back. No matter… there was more on the counter. A curtain of hair cascaded over his eyes, concealing them in shadow so only the golden flecks of light radiating off of the lamp could reveal that… his eyes were still there.

With a dismal frown, his fingers tapped against the lid of his next victim - tap, tap, tap… just like that pen at the office.

B-but I don't have T-tiVo (you sexy bastard you)

[man_nav_naudas]

That troubling tick which haunted Raivis's nightmares nearly as much as the eyes that gleamed under electrical light. When the bottle came to him, his fingers curled around it in the manner of one taking hold of a snake- with a careful, dread hesitance that attempted to prolong an inevitable bite. Too long his eyes had lingered on the bottle in Ivan's hands- no, rather, too long on the horrifying moment where it had hovered near those thin most probably icy lips. Now in his own grasp, it seemed that to drink was somehow-

Sacrilegious.

He would connect to a thing, however indirectly, he was certain he did not want.

The climate here was fickle. Cold before, now it sweltered. His clothing stifled. The beer finally splashing his tongue tainted it with a stale, nauseating flavor. Not so much hops as it was bile. Vile.

And yet- He could not stop. He was not permitted to stop. Once the bottle had been open, its contents had to be consumed. It was a courtesy he shared with Ivan. The wasting of alcohol was a social error in which he would not- could not- partake. However sickened it made him. However much it seemed to cripple his being, shrinking him ever the more beneath its cruel taste and that frigid, persistent gaze.

Where he was permitted to look, how he should move. It was all dictated with Ivan's direction. Whenever they co-existed within the same room- the same building even, the will- his independence- was stripped away to leave him naked and exposed. Not a Raivis but merely-

An extension.

The bottle emptied quickly, too quickly a trembling grip set it down with a soft clink against the table. "...S-sir?"

Ffff... my writing is so bad today.

[das_vedanya]

A few monotonous minutes ticked away on the nearby clock. He swore that his heartbeat had slowed to the same tempo as the seconds hand. Tick, lub-dub… tick, lub-dub, tick… The metronome of silence dawdled to a slower bpm with each generous swallow of vodka. The nearest light bulb flickered, making their shadows ebb and flow along the far wall.

"...S-sir?"

“Kto?” He snapped in return, deriving a minimal amount of pleasure out of the way Ravis jumped at the sound of his voice. Ravis didn’t need to know that it was the Russian word for ”what?” as the tone gave enough of a clue. At this point, he could’ve used the Russian word for ‘train’ (Poist) and it would mean the same thing in Ravis’s ears.

Hardly, m'dear~

[man_nav_naudas]

Whatever had been meant to be said was dead. Deceased and buried beneath the vivid terror assaulting Raivis's mind every which way it ran. No way out. No security. Just Doctor Braginsky, drink and the devil. Hell was influencing the slow, stalwart pacing of the clock. Certainly no day had passed with minutes as eternal as these- no waking memory served to come that carried such a terrible, gnawing anticipation.

Slowly closing his mouth, squeezing his eyes shut for a brief, silent prayer, Raivis shook his head as he murmured a fragile, apologetic, "I-i-it's nothing, sir. I a-apologize..."

The vodka shimmered at him enticingly on his peripheral.

He tried not to notice.

Ravis is too kind ;A;

[das_vedanya]

He knew that look. He could recognize that look anywhere… on anyone. Even Ravis. Yes, even Ravis. The glimmer of the transparent liquor danced in the sheen of Ravis’s tear-producing eyes. The quivering pupils followed that sheen.

“You are welcome to have another.” Ivan egged on. The devil’s advocate. He had to be… somewhat hospitable. Ravis was, no matter how much he hated to admit it, a guest.

Hush darling, just let the magic happen~

[man_nav_naudas]

"-Welcome to have another."

Another.
Another?
No more. Raivis restrained the shudder crawling up his spine as he folded his hands together, desperately wishing he could at least find solitude in sitting down. But if Ivan had not invited him to do so, then he would remain erect- standing as he teetered on the edge of passing out from so much terror compacted within so small a frame.

"I-I'm fine, th-thank you, sir. I... I p-p-promised Pe- I'm t-trying to cut back, sir..."

As you wish.

[das_vedanya]

He lowered the bottle from the perch it took against his bottom lip, peering over it with a cocked eyebrow, in Ravis’s direction. It was silent challenge, nothing more, nothing less. He thought about using the recovering alcoholic excuse again, but even he had to admit that it was getting old…

…and somewhat painful to repeat.

Instead: “Ah, so you’re trying to cut down for the sake of someone else?” he chuckled at the idea, but it was not a laugh of good humor, but of dark intentions. “What is to say of a habit that was started on account of someone?”