For the first few weeks Yuri communicates in a series of grunts and resentful hand gestures. It’s not the best system but it works fine until their first raid together when Nikolai knifes the throat of some guy sneaking up behind him without missing a beat.
Yuri had turned then, mouth open and stunned, while the dead man slid bonelessly down to the ground. The splatter on Yuri’s cheek was still warm as he stared down at the blood steaming in the winter freeze.
Nikolai had stepped over the body then, his boots flashing black against the snow, and said nothing. Later though, when they were hunched down in a ditch running along the tree line outside the city, they shared a flask of vodka.
The elite UCBS unit was put together with unseemly haste, and Yuri and Nikolai were the only soldiers of the former Eastern Bloc countries, let alone sons of mother Russia. Yuri was more lonely than he liked to admit, and somehow, the comfort of their shared language and a few shots of vodka began to mean more to him than the surface enmity he had harbored for the first few weeks.
It helped that Nikolai was as good at his job as Yuri was. Somehow, it didn’t surprise him when he finally found out that Nikolai had been pulled from the Spesnaz as well. Yuri was two years older and had never bothered himself with knowing anything about the younger recruits.
For the first few weeks Yuri communicates in a series of grunts and resentful hand gestures. It’s not the best system but it works fine until their first raid together when Nikolai knifes the throat of some guy sneaking up behind him without missing a beat.
Yuri had turned then, mouth open and stunned, while the dead man slid bonelessly down to the ground. The splatter on Yuri’s cheek was still warm as he stared down at the blood steaming in the winter freeze.
Nikolai had stepped over the body then, his boots flashing black against the snow, and said nothing. Later though, when they were hunched down in a ditch running along the tree line outside the city, they shared a flask of vodka.
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It helped that Nikolai was as good at his job as Yuri was. Somehow, it didn’t surprise him when he finally found out that Nikolai had been pulled from the Spesnaz as well. Yuri was two years older and had never bothered himself with knowing anything about the younger recruits.
He was a little ashamed of himself for that, now.
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