Taken: 4/5, AU, R, Drama
Title: Taken
Genre: Drama
Rating: R (violence and torture)
Players: Sergei Fedorov(POV)/Nikolai Zherdev
Summary: AU. Based on the 2008 movie Taken. An ex-KGB agent relies on skills he’d tried to forget in order to save his young lover, a hockey player who has been kidnapped by those who want him for themselves.
Notes:
‘lapushka’ - Russian; ‘little paw’. Pet name.
‘Kolya’ - Russian; diminutive form of ‘Nikolai’.
-
They drugged the water.
For some reason that fact irks you more than the violation on the train; more than their callous treatment of you. Woozy and disoriented, you rage silently against them as you’re transferred from train to car, from car to house. They don’t bother with the hood anymore, and something in you realizes that this is a Bad Thing. But the thought is fleeting, evanescent, and you can’t quite grasp hold of why you should be worried.
It comes back, sharp and clear, when they start divesting you of your clothes.
You try to struggle, but the racing fear and panic beating in your chest seems unable to translate to your limbs. You manage a few slow, bleary swipes that are easily batted away. They strip you down without emotion, leaving you exposed and bare in just your boxers as you sway in drugged stupor.
They don’t care about you seeing them, or other people seeing you, any more. This is your last stop. Your final destination. You have reached the buyer of your body, though you have yet to see him-and you won’t for a while, as a silk black blindfold is pulled over your eyes. Padded cuffs are wrapped around your wrists and ankles, and the exact purpose of your abduction is made terrifyingly clear as you are pushed backward onto a soft mattress. Bile rises in your throat, and you try to lash out-but your body is too heavy, too numb. They pull your arms and legs out, affixing manacles to bedposts, and when you let out a garbled, desperate whine, a gag is slipped into your mouth. It’s different from the crude cloth of before: silicone or rubber, it is meant solely for play, and the thought twists cold in your stomach.
You hear the door shut, and then there is silence. It’s just you and your own breathing, and the muffled sob that you have to choke back down your throat. As time stretches on in minutes or hours or days, you find yourself squeezing your eyes desperately shut against the hot well of tears.
You are alone.
-
Viktor Tikhonov lived in a posh residential community in the western sector of Moscow, the area surrounded by private-security parkland near a small manmade lake. Three- and four-story townhouses rose from the ground in lavish displays of wealth and power, imported cars from overseas parked in open drives, immaculate lawns stretching out with not a blade of grass out of place.
It took just four hundred American dollars to get us past the guards at the gate.
-“Be careful, Slavochka,”- Igor’s voice murmured from my earpiece as we approached Tikhonov’s house. I glanced over at Slava, trying to gauge his reaction, but his expression betrayed nothing. Igor was outside the gated compound in a nondescript car, monitoring the hacked video feeds on his laptop-and keeping a close eye on Nikita, who had not wanted to leave my side. I’d just barely convinced him to stay with Igor; and even then only a judicious amount of sedative in his apple juice had won the argument. I wouldn’t risk him being hurt further, and I couldn’t have him distracting my attention while I was getting Nikolai.
A sleek Yarygin handgun, the successor to my own outdated Makarov, was tucked into a holster at Slava’s hip-and the badge normally in his coat pocket was back in the car with Igor. This was a strictly unofficial business, not tied to the FSB in any way. I had asked if Ilya and Aleks were okay with that fact, with ignoring all codes of conduct, and had received a sneer and a disbelieving grunt before their badges had joined Slava’s on the car seat. They were already at the back entrance of the stately townhouse, ready to go when we were.
As we reached the door, taking up positions on either side, I met Slava’s gaze across the entryway.
“You don’t have to involve yourself in this,” I said. It was a last offer: a last out. I knew all that he was risking by helping me.
Slava shot me a disgusted look.
“If I didn’t intend to go through with this, Sergei Viktorovich, I would not be here,” he said tartly. “I would have had you arrested at Leningradsky Station instead.”
A soft warmth suffused through the nervous anxiety in my chest with his words. I couldn’t help the grin that curled my lips. Slava caught the look, and the edges of his mouth twitched. He inclined his head briefly, acknowledging the brothership that we still shared.
We entered the townhouse.
Slava and I didn’t even bother securing the ground level: that was Ilya and Aleks’ job. We proceeded directly up the stairs from the expansive marble entryway, doing a quick sweep of the second floor. There was only one guard, walking on patrol. We ducked into a storage closet until he had passed, and Slava quietly took him out while I glanced into the other rooms. The security room was on the first floor, and Tikhonov’s own quarters were on the third-but we weren’t going to risk leaving enemies behind us. Once the second level was secure, we proceeded up the stairs once more.
There was only silence from below, and I had to take it on faith that Aleks and Ilya could handle themselves.
-“Everything’s clear down here,”- Aleks’ voice said just a moment later, before I could even begin to feel any worry. -“Emergency call and phone lines have been disconnected.”-
-“Security cameras show four on the third floor,”- Igor added. -“Tikhonov and his two bodyguards, and one roaming sentry.”-
And as Slava and I reached the third floor landing, we came face-to-face with the aforementioned Viktor Tikhonov, and his guards.
I didn’t get a good look at Tikhonov. He was too busy sprinting down the hall, and Slava and I were too preoccupied with diving for cover. I ducked behind a decorative statue that was supported on a solid slab of marble; Slava darted into a recessed alcove beneath a painting of St. Basil’s Cathedral. A scattering of bullets took out the hand of the statue above me, and I looked over to catch Slava’s gaze.
He held up two fingers, and pointed out two locations. I nodded.
The bodyguards were horribly overmatched. They were guns for hire; we had years of training. They likely had been in very few firefights before, and we knew what we were doing. Two quick shots from my Makarov took out the one furthest to the left; one well-placed bullet from Slava’s Yarygin subdued the one on the right.
But even outmatched incompetents can get in the occasional lucky shot.
Slava fell back with a sharp cry as another shot rang out, pressing his hand to his side as he slumped to the ground. I reacted instinctively: leaning out from behind the slab, raising the muzzle of my gun to aim at the origin of the shot. The sentry we had overlooked fell without a sound-but the damage had already been done.
Blood was seeping between Slava’s fingers. His face was pale, but his eyes were clear and tight. I stood over him, frozen in place, my heart pounding in my chest.
“Go after Tikhonov,” he snapped. “It isn’t fatal-I’ll be fine. Go, Sergei.”
I went.
-“Igor? Lapushka, I’m afraid I’ve gotten myself shot.”-
-“What? Christ, Slava- Don’t you dare move-you don’t fucking move until Ilya and Aleks get there, do you understand me? Don’t you dare…”-
I tore the earpiece out as I ran, throwing it away. I didn’t need to hear Igor’s frantic, panicked reassurances to the man he so desperately loved. Not when my Nikolai was so close. Not while Tikhonov still had the upper hand.
I yanked open the door to the master suite and was greeted with the barrel of a pistol pointed directly between my eyes.
“Drop the gun, and close the door behind you,” Tikhonov ordered quietly. He stood in the middle of the anteroom, a harsh-faced man in a dark grey suit, and he held the gun like someone who knew how to use it. Behind him was a closed door that I knew-knew-led to the bedroom.
Where I knew that Nikky had to be.
I did as I was told, kicking my Makarov away and being careful to keep my hands in sight. I was acutely aware of the knife tucked into a sheath in the side of my boot-just as I was painfully cognizant of my own vulnerability. I opened my mouth to speak, to try to gain some sort of control over the situation, and Tikhonov’s hand twitched.
I choked on my words as the bullet shattered my left kneecap, and let out a garbled, strangled scream instead.
I pitched forward onto the floor, red and yellow bursting behind my eyelids as agony ripped through me. I supported myself with my good leg and one hand, sucking in air as black spots danced in my vision. Blood pounded in my temples and pooled on the carpet around my ruined knee, pulsing out with every beat of my heart.
It hurt.
“I’m not interested in anything you have to say,” Tikhonov snapped. “You came into my home-”
“Like you came into mine?” I snarled, baring my teeth and glaring murder up into his surprised gaze. The rage was good. It burned through me, a natural drug amped up by the adrenalin kicking around in my system and the endorphins battling against the pain. I held onto it like a tiny, ferocious fire, cradling it close in my chest.
Tikhonov stared at me.
“That’s why you’re here?” he said incredulously. “For him? Do you know how many pets I’ve owned in my lifetime? He is just one of many. You shouldn’t have wasted your time. Or your life.”
Hunched over on the floor, it wasn’t difficult to maneuver my hand closer to my boot. I curled the tips of my fingers around the hilt of the knife hidden there, looking up as I gauged distance and trajectory. There would only be one chance.
“He,” I spat, “Is mine.”
Tikhonov finally realized-too late-what I was doing. In an eternity-long moment, his eyes widened, his hand shifting and his finger moving on the trigger of his gun. But by that time the knife was already soaring through the air, sailing on a deadly path that he was unable to stop.
The bullet tore through my arm, scoring a line of red agony across my bicep. And my knife buried itself solidly, hilt-deep, into his left eye.
I bowed my head as Tikhonov’s body crumpled to the floor, still and unmoving. It took a few tries before I successfully levered myself back to my feet, my maimed leg screaming with every movement and my arm hanging uselessly at my side. Still, I limped forward, stepping over Tikhonov’s lifeless form to push open the closed door beyond.
In the simply-furnished bedroom, on a massive behemoth of a bed, Nikolai lay bound and blindfolded. He wore little-just the pair of black boxers that I had seen him pull on the previous morning. A lifetime ago. A rubber ball gag kept him quiet, and the trappings of sexual slavery could have made me want to go back and empty the rest of my clip into Tikhonov’s dead body-if it hadn’t been for the utter relief flooding through me. Nik was tense as I limped to the side of the bed, and I tried to keep my hands and my voice gentle as I pulled the blindfold from his head.
“Nikky?”
The most beautiful grey eyes stared up at me.
My hand shook as I clumsily unbuckled the gag in Nik’s mouth, pulling it away and dropping it to the floor. As soon as it left his lips he was talking, babbling in a senseless wave that washed over me in a soothing rush of peace and calm.
“Sergei-jesus christ, Sergei-you’re bleeding everywhere, you- God, you came for me, you said that you would but I was so scared-I didn’t know how you would find me-”
“Of course I came for you.” Nikolai’s eyes were huge, tracking my movements as I undid the cuffs around his wrists. I smiled gently. “I said I would, didn’t I?”
Tears welled in his eyes, but I didn’t have the time to decipher what they meant before Nik’s arms were wrapped tight around me, the restraints holding him back finally gone. His ankles were still bound-I would let him get those; he could do it faster anyway-but he didn’t seem to notice. He pressed his face into my shoulder and trembled, clinging to me as though I was the only solid bastion in a storm. The adrenalin was wearing off and my injuries were making themselves more loudly known- but I wouldn’t have let go of him for anything in the world.
“I was so scared,” he whispered, almost too quiet for me to hear. “I didn’t know if I would ever see you again. I wasn’t ready-there’s so much I still want to share with you, and I didn’t know if I would have the chance-”
“We still have time, my Kolya,” I murmured. I rested my cheek atop his mussed head of hair, the pain fading to the back of my mind as I breathed in the scent of him; as I reveled in the warmth of his body pressed against me.
Nikolai was safe.
I smiled, and closed my eyes.
“We have all the time in the world.”
-
It had taken five months and thirteen days into your relationship before Sergei realized how much of a part of his life you had become.
You had never been as scared as you were on that day.
The recognition was abrupt. One moment you were rummaging through a drawer looking for a clean pair of socks; the next, you were standing utterly frozen as Sergei looked up from his book, blinked, and commented that you hadn’t been back to your own apartment in three weeks. His gaze was quizzical and vaguely bemused-and it absolutely terrified you.
You put up a front, of course. You glanced over at him, raised a cocky eyebrow and asked if he had just now noticed. The anxiety that made your heart pound didn’t show at all in your voice, a fact that made you damn proud. But you couldn’t take your eyes off of Sergei’s face, trying desperately to read what he was thinking as he looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. You followed his gaze, self-consciously noting a pair of your jeans draped over the back of a chair, a stack of your books on the desk; your wallet and keys tossed on the bedside stand. You inwardly squirmed as he seemed to catalogue every piece of evidence of your existence, something small and frightened and nervous coiling in the pit of your stomach.
After a few moments that stretched on for years, Sergei made a small ‘huh’ sound. A soft, thoughtful smile curled his mouth, and he dropped his eyes back contentedly to his book.
You could have melted to the ground in relief.
Instead, after a length of time that was suitably unhurried, you made your way back to the bed. You crawled in with Sergei, nestling against his side, and if your grip was a little tighter than usual, he didn’t say anything. He just wrapped his arm around your shoulders and drew you close, holding you safe and secure beside him.
-
Genre: Drama
Rating: R (violence and torture)
Players: Sergei Fedorov(POV)/Nikolai Zherdev
Summary: AU. Based on the 2008 movie Taken. An ex-KGB agent relies on skills he’d tried to forget in order to save his young lover, a hockey player who has been kidnapped by those who want him for themselves.
Notes:
‘lapushka’ - Russian; ‘little paw’. Pet name.
‘Kolya’ - Russian; diminutive form of ‘Nikolai’.
-
They drugged the water.
For some reason that fact irks you more than the violation on the train; more than their callous treatment of you. Woozy and disoriented, you rage silently against them as you’re transferred from train to car, from car to house. They don’t bother with the hood anymore, and something in you realizes that this is a Bad Thing. But the thought is fleeting, evanescent, and you can’t quite grasp hold of why you should be worried.
It comes back, sharp and clear, when they start divesting you of your clothes.
You try to struggle, but the racing fear and panic beating in your chest seems unable to translate to your limbs. You manage a few slow, bleary swipes that are easily batted away. They strip you down without emotion, leaving you exposed and bare in just your boxers as you sway in drugged stupor.
They don’t care about you seeing them, or other people seeing you, any more. This is your last stop. Your final destination. You have reached the buyer of your body, though you have yet to see him-and you won’t for a while, as a silk black blindfold is pulled over your eyes. Padded cuffs are wrapped around your wrists and ankles, and the exact purpose of your abduction is made terrifyingly clear as you are pushed backward onto a soft mattress. Bile rises in your throat, and you try to lash out-but your body is too heavy, too numb. They pull your arms and legs out, affixing manacles to bedposts, and when you let out a garbled, desperate whine, a gag is slipped into your mouth. It’s different from the crude cloth of before: silicone or rubber, it is meant solely for play, and the thought twists cold in your stomach.
You hear the door shut, and then there is silence. It’s just you and your own breathing, and the muffled sob that you have to choke back down your throat. As time stretches on in minutes or hours or days, you find yourself squeezing your eyes desperately shut against the hot well of tears.
You are alone.
-
Viktor Tikhonov lived in a posh residential community in the western sector of Moscow, the area surrounded by private-security parkland near a small manmade lake. Three- and four-story townhouses rose from the ground in lavish displays of wealth and power, imported cars from overseas parked in open drives, immaculate lawns stretching out with not a blade of grass out of place.
It took just four hundred American dollars to get us past the guards at the gate.
-“Be careful, Slavochka,”- Igor’s voice murmured from my earpiece as we approached Tikhonov’s house. I glanced over at Slava, trying to gauge his reaction, but his expression betrayed nothing. Igor was outside the gated compound in a nondescript car, monitoring the hacked video feeds on his laptop-and keeping a close eye on Nikita, who had not wanted to leave my side. I’d just barely convinced him to stay with Igor; and even then only a judicious amount of sedative in his apple juice had won the argument. I wouldn’t risk him being hurt further, and I couldn’t have him distracting my attention while I was getting Nikolai.
A sleek Yarygin handgun, the successor to my own outdated Makarov, was tucked into a holster at Slava’s hip-and the badge normally in his coat pocket was back in the car with Igor. This was a strictly unofficial business, not tied to the FSB in any way. I had asked if Ilya and Aleks were okay with that fact, with ignoring all codes of conduct, and had received a sneer and a disbelieving grunt before their badges had joined Slava’s on the car seat. They were already at the back entrance of the stately townhouse, ready to go when we were.
As we reached the door, taking up positions on either side, I met Slava’s gaze across the entryway.
“You don’t have to involve yourself in this,” I said. It was a last offer: a last out. I knew all that he was risking by helping me.
Slava shot me a disgusted look.
“If I didn’t intend to go through with this, Sergei Viktorovich, I would not be here,” he said tartly. “I would have had you arrested at Leningradsky Station instead.”
A soft warmth suffused through the nervous anxiety in my chest with his words. I couldn’t help the grin that curled my lips. Slava caught the look, and the edges of his mouth twitched. He inclined his head briefly, acknowledging the brothership that we still shared.
We entered the townhouse.
Slava and I didn’t even bother securing the ground level: that was Ilya and Aleks’ job. We proceeded directly up the stairs from the expansive marble entryway, doing a quick sweep of the second floor. There was only one guard, walking on patrol. We ducked into a storage closet until he had passed, and Slava quietly took him out while I glanced into the other rooms. The security room was on the first floor, and Tikhonov’s own quarters were on the third-but we weren’t going to risk leaving enemies behind us. Once the second level was secure, we proceeded up the stairs once more.
There was only silence from below, and I had to take it on faith that Aleks and Ilya could handle themselves.
-“Everything’s clear down here,”- Aleks’ voice said just a moment later, before I could even begin to feel any worry. -“Emergency call and phone lines have been disconnected.”-
-“Security cameras show four on the third floor,”- Igor added. -“Tikhonov and his two bodyguards, and one roaming sentry.”-
And as Slava and I reached the third floor landing, we came face-to-face with the aforementioned Viktor Tikhonov, and his guards.
I didn’t get a good look at Tikhonov. He was too busy sprinting down the hall, and Slava and I were too preoccupied with diving for cover. I ducked behind a decorative statue that was supported on a solid slab of marble; Slava darted into a recessed alcove beneath a painting of St. Basil’s Cathedral. A scattering of bullets took out the hand of the statue above me, and I looked over to catch Slava’s gaze.
He held up two fingers, and pointed out two locations. I nodded.
The bodyguards were horribly overmatched. They were guns for hire; we had years of training. They likely had been in very few firefights before, and we knew what we were doing. Two quick shots from my Makarov took out the one furthest to the left; one well-placed bullet from Slava’s Yarygin subdued the one on the right.
But even outmatched incompetents can get in the occasional lucky shot.
Slava fell back with a sharp cry as another shot rang out, pressing his hand to his side as he slumped to the ground. I reacted instinctively: leaning out from behind the slab, raising the muzzle of my gun to aim at the origin of the shot. The sentry we had overlooked fell without a sound-but the damage had already been done.
Blood was seeping between Slava’s fingers. His face was pale, but his eyes were clear and tight. I stood over him, frozen in place, my heart pounding in my chest.
“Go after Tikhonov,” he snapped. “It isn’t fatal-I’ll be fine. Go, Sergei.”
I went.
-“Igor? Lapushka, I’m afraid I’ve gotten myself shot.”-
-“What? Christ, Slava- Don’t you dare move-you don’t fucking move until Ilya and Aleks get there, do you understand me? Don’t you dare…”-
I tore the earpiece out as I ran, throwing it away. I didn’t need to hear Igor’s frantic, panicked reassurances to the man he so desperately loved. Not when my Nikolai was so close. Not while Tikhonov still had the upper hand.
I yanked open the door to the master suite and was greeted with the barrel of a pistol pointed directly between my eyes.
“Drop the gun, and close the door behind you,” Tikhonov ordered quietly. He stood in the middle of the anteroom, a harsh-faced man in a dark grey suit, and he held the gun like someone who knew how to use it. Behind him was a closed door that I knew-knew-led to the bedroom.
Where I knew that Nikky had to be.
I did as I was told, kicking my Makarov away and being careful to keep my hands in sight. I was acutely aware of the knife tucked into a sheath in the side of my boot-just as I was painfully cognizant of my own vulnerability. I opened my mouth to speak, to try to gain some sort of control over the situation, and Tikhonov’s hand twitched.
I choked on my words as the bullet shattered my left kneecap, and let out a garbled, strangled scream instead.
I pitched forward onto the floor, red and yellow bursting behind my eyelids as agony ripped through me. I supported myself with my good leg and one hand, sucking in air as black spots danced in my vision. Blood pounded in my temples and pooled on the carpet around my ruined knee, pulsing out with every beat of my heart.
It hurt.
“I’m not interested in anything you have to say,” Tikhonov snapped. “You came into my home-”
“Like you came into mine?” I snarled, baring my teeth and glaring murder up into his surprised gaze. The rage was good. It burned through me, a natural drug amped up by the adrenalin kicking around in my system and the endorphins battling against the pain. I held onto it like a tiny, ferocious fire, cradling it close in my chest.
Tikhonov stared at me.
“That’s why you’re here?” he said incredulously. “For him? Do you know how many pets I’ve owned in my lifetime? He is just one of many. You shouldn’t have wasted your time. Or your life.”
Hunched over on the floor, it wasn’t difficult to maneuver my hand closer to my boot. I curled the tips of my fingers around the hilt of the knife hidden there, looking up as I gauged distance and trajectory. There would only be one chance.
“He,” I spat, “Is mine.”
Tikhonov finally realized-too late-what I was doing. In an eternity-long moment, his eyes widened, his hand shifting and his finger moving on the trigger of his gun. But by that time the knife was already soaring through the air, sailing on a deadly path that he was unable to stop.
The bullet tore through my arm, scoring a line of red agony across my bicep. And my knife buried itself solidly, hilt-deep, into his left eye.
I bowed my head as Tikhonov’s body crumpled to the floor, still and unmoving. It took a few tries before I successfully levered myself back to my feet, my maimed leg screaming with every movement and my arm hanging uselessly at my side. Still, I limped forward, stepping over Tikhonov’s lifeless form to push open the closed door beyond.
In the simply-furnished bedroom, on a massive behemoth of a bed, Nikolai lay bound and blindfolded. He wore little-just the pair of black boxers that I had seen him pull on the previous morning. A lifetime ago. A rubber ball gag kept him quiet, and the trappings of sexual slavery could have made me want to go back and empty the rest of my clip into Tikhonov’s dead body-if it hadn’t been for the utter relief flooding through me. Nik was tense as I limped to the side of the bed, and I tried to keep my hands and my voice gentle as I pulled the blindfold from his head.
“Nikky?”
The most beautiful grey eyes stared up at me.
My hand shook as I clumsily unbuckled the gag in Nik’s mouth, pulling it away and dropping it to the floor. As soon as it left his lips he was talking, babbling in a senseless wave that washed over me in a soothing rush of peace and calm.
“Sergei-jesus christ, Sergei-you’re bleeding everywhere, you- God, you came for me, you said that you would but I was so scared-I didn’t know how you would find me-”
“Of course I came for you.” Nikolai’s eyes were huge, tracking my movements as I undid the cuffs around his wrists. I smiled gently. “I said I would, didn’t I?”
Tears welled in his eyes, but I didn’t have the time to decipher what they meant before Nik’s arms were wrapped tight around me, the restraints holding him back finally gone. His ankles were still bound-I would let him get those; he could do it faster anyway-but he didn’t seem to notice. He pressed his face into my shoulder and trembled, clinging to me as though I was the only solid bastion in a storm. The adrenalin was wearing off and my injuries were making themselves more loudly known- but I wouldn’t have let go of him for anything in the world.
“I was so scared,” he whispered, almost too quiet for me to hear. “I didn’t know if I would ever see you again. I wasn’t ready-there’s so much I still want to share with you, and I didn’t know if I would have the chance-”
“We still have time, my Kolya,” I murmured. I rested my cheek atop his mussed head of hair, the pain fading to the back of my mind as I breathed in the scent of him; as I reveled in the warmth of his body pressed against me.
Nikolai was safe.
I smiled, and closed my eyes.
“We have all the time in the world.”
-
It had taken five months and thirteen days into your relationship before Sergei realized how much of a part of his life you had become.
You had never been as scared as you were on that day.
The recognition was abrupt. One moment you were rummaging through a drawer looking for a clean pair of socks; the next, you were standing utterly frozen as Sergei looked up from his book, blinked, and commented that you hadn’t been back to your own apartment in three weeks. His gaze was quizzical and vaguely bemused-and it absolutely terrified you.
You put up a front, of course. You glanced over at him, raised a cocky eyebrow and asked if he had just now noticed. The anxiety that made your heart pound didn’t show at all in your voice, a fact that made you damn proud. But you couldn’t take your eyes off of Sergei’s face, trying desperately to read what he was thinking as he looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. You followed his gaze, self-consciously noting a pair of your jeans draped over the back of a chair, a stack of your books on the desk; your wallet and keys tossed on the bedside stand. You inwardly squirmed as he seemed to catalogue every piece of evidence of your existence, something small and frightened and nervous coiling in the pit of your stomach.
After a few moments that stretched on for years, Sergei made a small ‘huh’ sound. A soft, thoughtful smile curled his mouth, and he dropped his eyes back contentedly to his book.
You could have melted to the ground in relief.
Instead, after a length of time that was suitably unhurried, you made your way back to the bed. You crawled in with Sergei, nestling against his side, and if your grip was a little tighter than usual, he didn’t say anything. He just wrapped his arm around your shoulders and drew you close, holding you safe and secure beside him.
-