chesspolitik | When all that I've known is lost and found

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When all that I've known is lost and found

As Anatoly very carefully made his way through the well-worn path, he thought that Cassie would be rather proud if she knew he was actually out of his hut. She might be less pleased if she knew he was a shade drunk, but that was neither here or there. The important thing was that he was out, actively seeking company from a real person and not the vodka.

He paused in front of Roger's door, suddenly feeling a little anxious. What if he wasn't there? What if he was? The truth was that social situations left him uneasy, something that he hadn't properly realized until now. At home, Molokov had controlled every situation and often given him talking points. Here, he'd allowed Lex to do much the same. Now he had neither and he was realizing this had to change if he wanted to have friends at all.

Screwing his courage to the sticking place, he raised his fist and knocked. "Roger?"

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"Lex left," Anatoly answered, staring down at his hands. "He said he had come to his senses, packed his things and then he was gone. I thought... I didn't know I would feel like this. Still - still feel like this, wondering why. Why can't I let it go?"

That drew a long exhale from Roger, hand swiping over his mouth in a move that was pure, 100 percent Dean emulation. It was fucked beyond belief, but Roger's first thought was that Anatoly was unattached and in his bedroom. Jesus. Jesus.

"Anatoly, I'm so sorry," Roger managed to say, a little surprised even himself at the sincerity and timing of it. For once, words hadn't failed the songwriter. "Of... course you can't let it go. He just... left like that? That's fucked." Defensive, of course, because it was something Roger would have done in the past, and once that was no longer true, it was certainly something Brian would have done.

Somehow, just the act of admitting he was falling apart to someone that he didn't have to put on a good face for was a relief. He'd tried so hard to keep himself together for Cassie and Kon's sake, not wanting to worry them and the only thing he'd really managed to accomplish was demolishing the last of his vodka reserves.

He looked up at Roger and shrugged ruefully. "Just like that. It seems so strange to say so, but it was just how it happened and I've been trying to - to manage ever since. God, I am so tired of thinking and feeling so lost."

Wow. A part of Roger flared up immediately, since it was Lex Luthor and the group of comic books that Mark owned and Roger had read suggested that he was sort of fucked up in the bald head. Anatoly was not, and more that that, Anatoly deserved honesty and goodness from a person who could provide emotional strength, or at least the balls to say why he was leaving.

Anyway, didn't villains monologue? Wasn't that a thing?

Roger didn't know what to say. He'd already expressed his sympathy, was already trying to find reasons not to slide over and kiss him out of his misery, and that was twice as fucked as what Lex had done, in Roger's mind.

"Do, uh, you need a place to stay? I could... there's a couch in the other room I could sleep on..."

Anatoly shook his head, picking at his sleeve again. "No, I - the hut was mine before he moved in. He just took his things and left."

He paused for a moment, leaning back to run his fingers through his hair. It was wrong that he should even consider voicing what he was thinking, to presume on Roger's friendship so, but the truth was that he didn't want to be alone. He wanted to stay someplace where there no awkward associations, no memories of what he'd had and lost. He also wanted someone, even if only for a night, just to hold in his arms and make him forget everything for awhile.

"You don't have to go... I mean. If tonight, I could stay... you don't have to go anywhere."

There was a certain quality, a certain greyscale color the skin took on when the heart quickened pace. Sometimes, it was just a pale before a flush - a skin-tone calm before the storm. For Roger, the color tended to rush to his lips when his heartbeat doubled in cadence, and then he would blush to the roots of his damn hair. That's what happened, and he found himself swallowing around a heart-sized lump in his throat.

"I, uh--" Roger began, searching for words that didn't seem so desperate to not be alone, himself. Brian had disappeared almost a year ago, and Roger hadn't made any significant connections since. He'd tried (as far as Roger could, he tried, at least), but nothing was working for him. Hell, he'd even been withdrawn at home. Almost a fucking year later. And what the hell did it mean that the first step he wanted to take in moving on was some sort of misplaced comfort with a man he'd pined over pathetically and suicidally (Lex. Fucking. Luthor.) for... well. A while. He needed help. Or a drink.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that," Anatoly said hurriedly, a deep flush of his own starting from his neck and steadily rising up. Belatedly, he was putting two and two together and coming up with the realization that he had yet again been an oblivious fool. "I didn't mean... to make you uncomfortable. This is your place. I can go."

He stood slowly, his eyes downcast and his arms crossed to keep them from trembling. "I don't want - to lose what we have. Our friendship. So... I will go."

It was the right thing to do and yet he found he couldn't take that first step back.

"No, wait," Roger said quickly, stumbling out of the chair after him, but he realized he wasn't actually leaving. In fact, he was standing as he was, feet planted, looking somewhat bewildered and slighted, but he wasn't leaving. In that moment, Roger's heart did some kind of euphoric chord progression, filled with hope and some kind of false courage.

"M'not uncomfortable," Roger started again, clearing his throat to attempt to get some of the strength back into it, and in the process, found he was actually taking steps forward.

"No?," Anatoly unthinkingly murmured in Russian. Realizing what he had said, he repeated himself in English as he took a tentative step forward. His heart was racing a mile a minute and he could feel his breath start to come in short gasps.

"The last thing I want to do is make you uncomfortable." He must be mad to consider what he was doing but as he took another step closer to Roger, he decided that just once, he could feel with his heart and not think with his head. Just once, passion before reason, impulse before steadiness, fire before ice.

God, Roger had no idea how long it had been since Lex had moved out. He wasn't sure if the answer would make him feel better or worse, but he was pretty sure... there was something happening. His eyes found Anatoly's mouth, and he licked his lips, ready to be toe-to-toe and chest-to-chest with the Grandmaster. It was something he'd wanted a thousand times for a thousand different reasons and he thought all at once that Anatoly wanted it, too. No, there was no way he was reading that wrong.

"You're not," Roger said, daring to move a hand to Anatoly's arm and slide it slowly up. "Anatoly..."

"Good," he breathed, barely remembering to speak in English. It struck him again as he looked into Roger's beautiful blue eyes that the only thing he and Freddie had in common was a face. In words, personality and deeds, they were worlds apart. As he turned his head to press a light kiss to Roger's hand, he knew who he thought was the better person.

And then there was no more conscious thought at all, as he reached for Roger's other hand and pressed a soft kiss to his palm. He could have been overreaching, but he didn't think so. Tonight, they were both on the same page.

Roger tried to tell himself that it was a cultural thing -- that the lips on his hand weren't meant to make heat spark and uncoil in his the way they just had, but by the time he'd rationalized it away, those same lips were on his palm and Roger was a goner. His eyes closed for half a second as he pictured sharp color spiraling from the point of contact and when he reopened his eyes, Anatoly was still there, still brushing his lips against Roger's palm.

The other hand found its way to Anatoly's cheek, and he searched his eyes for a moment before closing his own and stepping in the remaining distance to watch the way that mouth whispered warmth into his palm.

Anatoly's head was spinning, but whether it was the vodka or Roger, he couldn't say. Whatever the reason, it wasn't about to stop him from needing Roger, wanting him.

He exhaled slowly and turned his head to leave soft feather-light kisses against the hand caressing his cheek. He brought Roger's hand to his chest, holding it tightly, and if his hand was trembling a little, he didn't notice.

"Roger," he whispered, his accent emphasizing the Rs more thickly than usual. He leaned in to kiss the corner of his mouth, first one side than the other before finally meeting his lips.

The recitation of his name gave him pause, even as his breath was hitching from the desperately needed contact to his hand. Once he was being kissed, though, his brain stopped working. He went absolutely still fir the first few moments, memorizing the feeling of it after thinking about it for so, so Goddamn long. It was perfect. Literally perfect. And no amount of atmosphere could fuck it up for him.

Nothing, of course, except his own crippling self-hatred.

"Anatoly," Roger said, moving a hand to his shoulder to steady him back a step. "Ple-- Just... Are you sure?"

Anatoly blinked at him in surprise, his brain taking a few moments to shift gears. "I'm sure," he said without hesitation. "This might be the only thing I feel sure about right now."

He knew that if he put deep thought into it, he'd hesitate and the moment would be lost. Maybe this was for one night only, maybe it was would be for me and the only way he'd know is if he took a chance.

He'd been so careful, and had gotten nothing but loneliness and grief. So he'd be reckless - what was the worst that could happen?

"Please Roger," he said, locking eyes with him. "I don't want to be alone. I want - I want this. You. Please."

Oh God. It was like something erupted within him, and in a single spread of warmth inside, he was kissing Anatoly again, but with such gusto that it may have been read as desperation. A hand secured itself at the back of Anatoly's neck and as his lips rolled over the Russian's, he was struck again by just how fucking much he wanted that and for just how long.

Anatoly leaned into the kiss, relieved that Roger wasn't making any further protests. He wrapped one arm around Roger's waist, noting how much lighter he was than Lex then immediately pushing that comparison back to the darkest recesses of his mind. His other hand wound itself in Roger's curls, marveling at the novel sensation.

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When all that I've known is lost and found

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