Sooner or later, this game must end, and Alec holds in his hand the means to end it.
The snow has stopped, and a slanting shaft of moonlight falls across the bed, illuminating Nikolai Luzhin's naked body. Alec reaches out and lightly traces the outline of one of the domes on Nikolai's bare back. He moves his finger down, skimming it over -- I'm a slave to fate, but no lackey to the law -- and smiles. Such exquisite irony, for he knows the truth.
Alec is too clever, too rich, and too well-connected, even now, not to know that a man named Nikolai Luzhin served time near Ekaterinburg, that he gained a fearsome reputation as a vor cold-blooded and heartless, and that the man sleeping on the bed bears that name, that face – but he knows as surely as he knows the sight of his own scarred countenance in the mirror that this man with his lean body and marvelously tight arse is not the man he appears to be, that he is in fact an agent of the Federal Security Service, and that the FSB is as particular as MI6 when it comes to choosing its agents; it weeds out the psychologically suspect, the zealot, the criminal.
And so he knows that Nikolai Luzhin lives a lie, but the nature of the lie is as myriad as the cheaply inked tattoos on his body. Some of those tattoos may have been honestly acquired in one way or another, but surely not all. And Alec knows, furthermore, that if Nikolai's secret is discovered by other vor -- if they find out that even one tattoo is false, that Nikolai will die in agony, the tattoos cut or burned from his living flesh.
There can be no doubt that Nikolai intends to betray him. His reticence to volunteer information, his self-containment, the carefully chosen words – Alec is all too familiar with the type. It's impossible to lead a double life and not exhibit those characteristics. What puzzles him is why he hasn't acted yet.
Alec turns the syrette over and over in his fingers. He can end it now, quickly and with relatively little pain. Or he can drop a word or two in the right ears and Nikolai will find himself bundled into the back of a van on his way to a soundproofed room in a warehouse outside Petersburg.
Nikolai murmurs and turns over. His eyes are closed, his lips parted. One hand grasps the duvet; the other is outstretched, half off the bed, fingers loosely curled. In the moonlight he looks softer, younger, at peace. He sleeps trustingly.
Alec's heart twists in his chest. This is not the first time he has contemplated this decision.
He slides open the drawer on the bedside table and touches a hidden spring to replace the syrette in its compartment. Noiselessly, he closes the drawer and climbs beneath the bedclothes to fit his body against Nikolai's.
Nikolai stirs. "You're cold," he murmurs, voice rusty with sleep. "Shivering."
"I know. I'm sorry."
A faint, unguarded smile crosses Nikolai's face; he sleepily draws a hand down Alec's arm and nestles close. "Better?"
"Yes." Alec clings to Nikolai tightly.
Let them tread this knife a little while longer. Alec cannot bring himself to let it fall.
Summary: He knows that Nikolai Luzhin lives a lie
Rated: PG-13
Categories: Crossovers Pairing: Alec Trevelyan/Nikolai Luzhin
Warnings: NoneChallenges:
Series: NoneChapters: 1 Completed: Yes
Word count: 552 Read: 1267
Published: 13 Nov 2010 Updated: 13 Nov 2010