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Kirill hasn’t changed since his father’s been out of the picture, at least not in any way that really matters. Nikolai honestly hadn’t hoped he would; very much to the contrary, in fact, he hoped he’d be exactly the man he’s known since the beginning. He knows Kirill being Kirill will make what he has to do so much easier, though he could never exactly call it easy. Nothing about the work he does ever has been, right from the start, and this thing is no different. But, he adapts.
When Semyon was arrested, there was no real question of who would take his place. Perhaps there were murmurings of this captain or that captain, any of ten new men coming in from Russia though how they’d arrange visas in time for the London branch not to fall in on itself and crumble was a very real issue, but there was never really any question because Kirill would take his father’s place. He has. And, if a bloodier fate doesn’t befall Semyon in prison, then he’ll die there of old age before he’s served his full sentence and Kirill will be the one who’s in control when the operation shuts them down. It’s out with the old and in with the new.
Of course, at least a part of the lack of immediate controversy in the changeover has been, aside from the vory v zakone sense of duty, that the others saw how Semyon had treated his son from time to time; they believed, Nikolai knows even now, that Kirill would be easily controlled. They’ve all been proved wrong, which Nikolai knew would be the case. Without his father in the way, without his duty as a son or as a captain to his captain in the way, Kirill is no man’s fool but his own; he knows he’s not the best but he knows how to mobilise his assets, how to delegate. That counts for something. And besides which, he has Nikolai; maybe no one else will control Kirill but Nikolai thinks he has a way, thinks he has a plan. He wishes he didn’t but can’t pretend it’s not true.
Kirill’s asserted himself strongly from the start and Nikolai has watched him do it, watched the threats he’s made then carried out and it hasn’t take long for word to spread about what will happen to dissenters. When Kirill looks to him for approval, recognition, looking without realising that’s what he’s doing but looking nonetheless, never once thinking to stop himself, Nikolai smiles a small, faint smile and inclines his head; then, Kirill continues. He sits at Kirill’s right hand through every single one of their meetings, did that through those first intense two months, his quiet presence lending force to the proceedings. Kirill is in charge but he has a strong enforcer there beside him. Nikolai already had a reputation with the men on the ground, and it’s only grown up and out since then. Everyone who’s anyone knows Nikolai.
“We’re going out tonight,” Kirill says, over borscht in the restaurant one evening, borscht that he makes Nikolai taste using his spoon though they both know how it tastes because the restaurant’s recipe never changes. Of course, he knows the fact of tasting itself wasn’t really the point. Kirill forces petty intimacies and Nikolai has always known exactly what they mean. He’s quietly encouraged them. He’s manipulated his way in by letting Kirill have exactly what he wants, or at least the things he can bring himself to ask for.
Nikolai could refuse to go, he thinks, and perhaps Kirill would even listen – sometimes he does – but it’s far more likely he’d give him that old familiar look and tell him that’s an order. Nikolai is saving his rejections for another time, for a time he really needs them, and so they go. They finish the food they’re eating there together, though neither one of them seems really hungry, and they go out just like Kirill wants to. Kirill wants to often, like it calms his nerves, and Nikolai can see exactly why that is. He does the job but Nikolai can see him straining under smiles he forces himself to smile, struggling a fraction more each day. He’s just not as good at this as his father was, should’ve been sent away to schools and universities to be sometimes else entirely but that was never on the cards with Semyon in charge. He knows he’s a disappointment.
Now that Nikolai has stars, they could have another driver. Perhaps they should have one, perhaps one each though they’re rarely one without the other – Kirill doesn’t need to find a way to justify the fact that he keeps Nikolai close but he says it’s for protection and he’s probably right to think he’s not entirely safe. Still, Nikolai is used to driving and frankly it’s still difficult to know who to trust with the regime change so fresh and new in everyone’s mind, especially with the rumours about Kirill that just won’t die down in spite of Soyka’s death. He called him a drunk and a queer and Kirill had him killed because there was nothing else he could do and Nikolai knows it. It was Soyka or Kirill, in the end, because as much as his father thought he knew he’d never really known and if he had, he’d have killed him himself. Nikolai believes that. He saw that in Semyon because he’s seen it in others before.
Kirill talks from the back seat just like he always does and Nikolai drives and smokes, drives out to the pricey strip club Kirill sometimes likes to visit, the place you can look but you’re never allowed to touch, unlike so many of the other places that they go to. Maybe that’s why he likes it there. Nikolai has no illusions about what Kirill wants, beneath those things he wants to want.
“We should get a place like this,” Kirill says, after his fourth drink or maybe it’s his fifth. “Classy. Not all strung out bitches like Azim’s.”
Nikolai agrees with this, albeit quietly; an upmarket gentlemen’s club would be a perfect front for business and a bold, decisive move away from the tradition of the restaurant for Kirill’s new regime. But that isn’t why they’re there and Nikolai knows it. Kirill’s a very easy read and always has been, since the day they met.
He was interviewed for the job as Kirill’s driver one night in the restaurant after hours, early autumn because there were dead leaves stuck to his shoes that wouldn’t peel away. There were men on the door, Kirill’s father’s men, all jutting jaws and knives under their coats, but only Kirill himself was waiting there inside; he sat in a booth with his legs spread so wide it could only be posturing or something not too far removed from it. The table had been moved out of the way so he could sit there in the same place Nikolai got his stars a few months later, like the interviews were some kind of odd parade for his amusement. They more or less were. He wasn’t invited to sit.
That night, he’d understood Kirill quickly, after he’d asked if he had tattoos aside from the ones on his hands, when he’d asked to see them and Nikolai had dutifully taken off his clothes, folding them as he went. He’d understood because in a second Nikolai had known exactly what it meant when Kirill stood and came in closer to him, when his fingertips traced the cross tattooed at his chest, when he saw him smile that smile that he knew Kirill meant to be mocking or joking or light-hearted but that covered something else instead that Kirill pretends isn’t there. He understood and so he let him look because of it. He let him touch. He let him laugh it off afterwards and then hire him, probably because he’d let him do it, or maybe just because he pretended not to notice when Kirill watched him put his clothes back on.
And so, flash forward, when Kirill’s had enough of drinking and spending his money on girls he can’t get it up with even if he wants to – and Nikolai’s sure sometimes he at least wants to want to – Nikolai wraps an arm around his waist and helps him out to the car, into the back seat where he sprawls drunkenly. He doesn’t take him home, because Kirill says the others seeing him that way would be bad for them all, seeing him out of control the way he is when he’s drunk too much because even if they’ve seen it before, they have to respect him now he’s the one in charge. So Nikolai goes home and he takes Kirill with him. It’s a calculated move. He knows how to pick his moments, how to start a plan in motion with at least a little subtlety. He’s been maintaining the status quo for months and now he has to start to tilt it slowly sideways, watch it fall.
His flat’s not grand but it’s tidy; when he’s more established he’ll upgrade, something with more than one bedroom that isn’t suspended there over a shop that sells alcohol into the early hours of the morning, though sometimes that’s been useful. He buys a bottle of mid-range whiskey on their way upstairs because while there’s good vodka on the table in the sitting room it’s the brand they use there in the restaurant and he doesn’t want Kirill thinking of home. Not now. Not yet.
Two drinks, ice in the glasses that’s barely started to melt by the time the whiskey’s gone, and then he puts Kirill to bed, in his bed. He takes off his shoes for him because he’s so very drunk, unbuttons his shirt, takes his time as he does it because he knows Kirill’s watching and he knows he can make himself look casual as he does it, like nothing about it’s on purpose. He says he’ll sleep in the sitting room; he doesn’t expect Kirill will protest and he doesn’t. They’ve never been equals in Kirill’s eyes. There’s always that imbalance there between them. That’s something else that’s going to change.
“I’m in your bed,” Kirill says, amused, a drunken smile plastered to his face.
Nikolai gives him a look that says he knows this, this is obvious, then he pulls the duvet up over him before he leaves the room. He only half-closes the door behind him and he takes off his own clothes just through the doorway to the sitting room, strips down to his underwear where he knows Kirill can see because he knows he’s watching even if neither of them will say a word about it. Kirill couldn’t say a word about it if he tried. His sense of self is such a careful construction that one misstep could tumble it.
And then, lights turned out past 2am, they sleep.
***
Three days later, there’s a meeting in the bathhouse. Nikolai has other business he should be attending to, isn’t crazy about the idea of going back there anyway since he still has the scars from the last time, but he makes sure he’s involved despite that. It’s an opportunity for plan progression, and Kirill’s requested his presence. He’s pushed down his own desires for so long that it’s second nature anyway.
They meet three men in towels and Nikolai understands the point of this, not only because they can see each other’s tattoos because those do mean something very clear but because listening devices would be made extremely obvious. The meeting goes well; apparently Kirill is pushing ahead with buying a club and Nikolai can see how that will help them both. There’ll be more business and so more for Nikolai to report, and Kirill will need his help with the arrangements. Perhaps he’ll persuade him to put him in charge. He doubts he’ll take much persuasion.
“Are you coming?” Kirill asks, standing once the meeting’s over.
“I’ll stay a while,” Nikolai says, still seated on the bench. And so Kirill sits back down like he’s intrigued to know why Nikolai wants to be there when they both know he came within an inch of being killed not ten feet away from that very spot. He knows Kirill knew nothing about the arrangements and not just because Semyon didn’t share. Kirill’s capable of many things, due more to his upbringing and environment than anything in his nature, but ordering his death is not one of those things.
Kirill’s watching him as he takes the towel from around his waist, as he folds it to use like a pillow under his head when he stretches out there on the bench. He closes his eyes but he knows Kirill’s eyes are on him, all over him, because his eyes are closed. He lets him look like he always does, because Kirill’s never far away from staring when he thinks no one’s going to see, but this time, after a long moment, he opens his eyes and he looks straight back at him. Kirill clearly knows he’s been caught in the act but after a second, two, three, holding his gaze just long enough to start to be uncomfortable, Nikolai just closes his eyes again. He hears Kirill curse under his breath as he leaves the room.
They visit the club Kirill wants to buy that afternoon. It’s already up and running and has been for the past few months; that means it’ll cost substantially more but means they’ll have less to spend in renovations, licences, all those things Kirill couldn’t give a damn about that afternoon because right now the club’s just an extension of his tenuous heterosexuality. He doesn’t drink but he spends big, lounging there in the VIP room through two lapdances that Nikolai watches with a hint of a smile. Kirill keeps glancing at him and then looking away, looking again, and Nikolai’s quite obvious about the way he watches him, casual but persistent. The look on his face as he comes in his trousers is priceless, halfway between confusion and relief because he just got off with a girl, but there was something else about it he’s unlikely to want to confront. Then Kirill gives the girl more cash to do Nikolai, too.
“Still making sure I’m not a queer, Kirill?” he says, as the girl settles in his lap.
“A gift,” Kirill says. “For all your hard work.” And that’s not the reason at all.
He watches Kirill watching him as the girl does her thing; she’s good, she’s pretty, she’s everything Kirill wants to want, but Nikolai isn’t done by the time she is – she tells him his time’s up and Kirill laughs as she leaves, as she exits the room with a smile and a sway of her hips. Nikolai’s hard and it’s not difficult to see; he rubs the heel of one hand over the crotch of his trousers, pressing down, just so it’s impossible that Kirill doesn’t notice as they sit there, not so very far apart. He knows there are things that Kirill wants to do, things he wants to do that scare him because he knows what it would mean if he did them. His papa would be ashamed.
“We should leave,” Kirill says. “We have business to take care of.”
Nikolai chuckles. “I have other business to take care of first,” he says, and when he stands he holds his coat over his arm in front of his groin so it’s obvious exactly he means by that, so it’s obvious to Kirill what he’ll be doing in the gents’ while he waits there for him. Kirill laughs as Nikolai leaves the room but it’s manic at the edges. He’s wearing him down, bit by bit, and so he can’t afford to take the pressure off now, not for a moment.
***
In four days’ time, the deal is still progressing quickly, more of the details smoothed over with each passing day. Nikolai eats with Kirill every evening in the restaurant, discussing business in low tones over good food, and then they pass their nights in clubs or playing cards in the restaurant’s back room with a few of the others. This is how life is for them there in London, until there’s another meeting called in the bathhouse.
This time, after, Kirill’s the one who takes off his towel. He tries to look casual about it, tries to look nonchalant as he sits there, nude, resting his head back against the wall, but Nikolai knows better. He’s trying to look like it doesn’t bother him at all, perhaps he’s even trying to convince himself, but then Nikolai stands and takes off his towel too, drops it pseudo-accidentally on the floor and has to bend down to retrieve it. Kirill doesn’t look quite as nonchalant after that. It’s just a few seconds longer before he has to leave and Nikolai knows why, which is precisely why he joins him in the communal showers out there in the changing room, immediately.
“Too hot?” Nikolai asks, stepping under the spray he’s set a couple of degrees cooler. He won’t be there long; after all, he’s just exited a bathhouse, cleaning again, cleaning more, isn’t exactly a priority.
Kirill glances at him over his shoulder; he’s trying to angle his body away from him, doing a poor job of hiding the erection he likely wishes he could wish away, but Nikolai doesn’t press that particular issue. He can’t go too far too quickly. He has to take measured steps.
“Too hot,” Kirill confirms.
“That happens sometimes,” Nikolai says, pauses as he runs his fingers through his damp hair, pushing it back from his forehead, stretching so it’s practically a show and though he feels ridiculous for doing it, it seems to have precisely the desired effect. “Take your time. I’ll wait in the car.”
He wonders if Kirill’s thinking of him when he touches himself, once he’s gone. He probably is. And he probably hates himself for it.
They visit the club again that night. Kirill pays, magnanimous, smiling at the girls a little too broadly, girls who smile at him because they all know he’s the man who’s buying the club, who’ll be their new boss. Nikolai watches him drink and flirt and spend his money, champagne for the girls, vodka for himself though he curses at it and says the first thing he’ll do when the deal goes through is bring in a better brand, even if he’s convinced most Brits can’t taste the difference. Nikolai doesn’t mention the fact that Kirill’s lived most of his life in England. He could probably have British citizenship if he wanted it, if he hasn’t already. After all, there’s a reason he’s never been deported.
There’s another lapdance after that, one each, the two simultaneous with two different girls. Kirill’s blonde sits there topless and sips champagne from his glass as she moves, letting it spill between her breasts for him to lick away but he’s so focused on Nikolai that he doesn’t even see her do it. They go somewhere else after that, somewhere seedier where the girls aren’t working their way through a degree or even earning for themselves at all, somewhere Nikolai feels out of place, uncomfortable, so he’ll send a message and he’ll get the place closed down. But for the moment, there they are.
The owner says it’ll be extra if his friend wants to watch; Kirill drops the money at the man’s feet and he slams the door in his face. Nikolai takes a seat in a threadbare armchair by the door, his coat folded over the back of it. The girl strips naked – the only mercy, if he can call it that, is she’s in her twenties and not just a child – and Kirill tells her to get down on her knees. He’s not sure what Kirill’s trying to prove when he has her suck him while Nikolai watches; he thinks maybe the points in all of this are starting to blur in Kirill’s head and that’s just what he wants, or what he wanted. But when he pushes her back, pushes her down on the bed, he can’t fuck her, he just can’t; he curses, shouts the words, he throws a lamp and it shatters against the wall in sharp ceramic shards. The girl’s scared, because she knows what his tattoos mean; Kirill throws on his clothes and storms out of the door and Nikolai stays a few minutes to calm her down after that. The owner cares more about his lamp but that’s an easy thing to compensate. Nikolai compensates the girl.
Kirill’s so drunk by the time it’s time to leave the bar downstairs that he can barely stand and so Nikolai helps him, gets him into the back seat of the car and listens as he babbles, lost somewhere between angry and manic. Nikolai goes to his flat, takes him upstairs, practically dragging him through the door and then into the bedroom where Kirill leans unsteadily against a wall and laughs as Nikolai’s hands push the coat from his shoulders.
“Can’t even fuck a fucking whore,” Kirill mutters, and bangs the back of his head against the wall, on purpose.
“You were too drunk,” Nikolai says. Kirill laughs; they both know that’s not true but neither one is going to admit it. He’s drunker now than he was then but even now he wouldn’t be too drunk to fuck if he wanted to.
He unbuttons Kirill’s shirt, pushes it back over his shoulders and Kirill lets it drop to the floor. He’s had to start dressing better since Semyon was arrested, at least more professionally, no leather jackets and t-shirts now, suits like his father would’ve worn for business and always did though now his wardrobe’s substantially less chic. Sometimes Nikolai has to fix his tie and Kirill will laugh about it as he does so, tell him he never really saw the point in learning that shit before then, never thought he’d need to wear one. But Nikolai knows he ties them badly on purpose so he’ll fix the problem, his fingers brushing there at Kirill’s jaw as he works.
Kirill’s shirt gone, Nikolai drops into a squat; he unties Kirill’s shoes then comes back up to unbuckle his belt, the back of his fingers brushing Kirill’s abdomen over his vest. He’s not drunk enough to need this much help but Nikolai doesn’t stop and Kirill doesn’t stop him; he steps out of his shoes and the trousers that pool around his feet, and then Nikolai walks him to the bed. Once he’s lying down, he almost thinks Kirill’s going to tell him to stay, going to say that’s an order and pull him down, but he lets him go and so Nikolai goes, leaves the door wide open, goes into the bathroom. That’s opposite the bedroom through the sitting room, and, on purpose, he only half-closes the door once he’s inside.
He knows what he’s doing as he strips down naked, leaving his clothes in a heap by the sink. He knows what he’s doing as he turns on the shower that’s over the bath, leaving the curtain wide open though he knows that’ll soak the floor – he can always mop it later, as unpleasant as that is, because it’s by far not the most unpleasant thing he’s ever done. He knows what he’s doing as he steps under the water, knows Kirill can see and Kirill will be watching as he rests one hand against the tiled wall, leans there, brings one foot up on the edge of the bath and takes himself in hand. He knows Kirill’s watching as he strokes himself, as his hips flex, as he makes himself come with his wet hair plastered to his face and his cock pulsing in his hand.
Then he looks up, quite deliberately; Kirill is watching, Kirill knows he’s been caught. But Nikolai just looks away again as he reaches over to close the bathroom door.
***
Kirill has an amazing capacity for compartmentalisation, or at least for ignoring any fact he doesn’t like. He’ll always manage it for a few days, at the very least, till something brings it up again, and this time is no different. He can put it away again after, but there’s always a point that it bubbles to the surface.
For three days, there’s nothing different between the two of them, at least not on the surface. For three days, they go about their business; Nikolai has a group of men reporting to him now, and then he reports on them to Kirill because that’s just what they do and how it works. That’s what they do for three days, making sure business is running efficiently and it is. Kirill’s reign is so far quite successful, no one out of line because they know exactly what will happen and not just because word got around quickly about how Soyka died. They think Kirill’s deadly. Nikolai’s put around several more rumours to that effect since then.
For three days, they eat dinner together in the restaurant each evening and Nikolai watches as Kirill tries to do the job his father did, tries to be the man his father was, except now and then he’ll look back in his direction from across the room while he does his deals and Nikolai knows Kirill can never, ever be Semyon. Maybe he could get close, with time and guidance, but he won’t have the chance to. He’ll make sure of that, because he has to.
And then, on the fourth day, in the restaurant after hours, Kirill is drunk because he’s frequently that way. There’s a bottle of vodka on the table when Nikolai comes in, letting himself into the building with the key Kirill gave him with a look like it meant something and Nikolai supposes it did, something about the way he trusts him, something about the way he sees him, about what he wishes underneath that their relationship could be. He’s sitting there with a drink in his hand and he looks up as Nikolai comes in, spills the vodka down his shirt and curses, loudly.
“I want to go out,” Kirill says. And so they go out. He’s the boss; he makes the rules and Nikolai follows them. Kirill likes to give him orders.
The club is his now in all but name and paperwork; the owners have been made aware of what will happen if they decide to back out of the deal and Nikolai knows it wouldn’t be pleasant because he’d be the one Kirill sends. That’s where they go, sitting in a booth in the corner, watching the girls dance at the poles up on stage. It’s less sad than Azim’s, this place where the girls actually chose to work even if perhaps it wasn’t much of a choice for some of them; no one looks underfed and there are no track marks in their arms. Some of them are positively athletic, hanging upside down, smiles on their faces, but Kirill’s only trying to be interested as he gets progressively drunker as the night wears on. Nikolai might have warned him about his drinking, perhaps, had it not made everything so much simpler. He’d like to stop him but he can’t.
“I’ll buy you a lapdance,” Kirill says, slurring slightly as he produces his wallet; the implication clear that if he isn’t going to have a good time then at least one of them is going to and maybe that’ll boost his heterosexuality by proxy.
“Put your money away,” Nikolai says. “You’ve had enough.”
They go back to Nikolai’s flat. They stagger up the stairs and go inside, and Kirill goes to the bedroom as if it makes perfect sense for him to do so. Nikolai follows and he knows, he knows, that Kirill’s not as drunk as he’s pretending because he’s a terrible actor and he always has been in every possible way, in all the way Nikolai isn’t and not just because he’s had a lot of practice. But Nikolai plays along, helps Kirill out of his clothes, helps him into bed, and then he leaves the room. He goes into the bathroom and he strips off all his clothes, turns on the shower, drops his towel into the bathtub not quite accidentally and swears under his breath. He keeps the towels in a drawer in the bedroom so he goes to the drawers, Kirill pretending not to watch him as he does so, as he finds a new towel, as he stands there naked by the bedroom door.
Maybe Kirill thinks he’ll be able to use inebriation as an excuse because he gets out of bed and Nikolai turns to him. Kirill’s hard in his boxers and he moves in quickly; Nikolai lets him push him up against the bedroom wall, lets him kiss him so hard it’s right on the edge of painful, lets him twist his fingers into his hair so tight it actually is painful. For a moment, a long one, he lets him do it to him, then he pushes him back, hands firm at his chest. Kirill looks panicked because Nikolai has never said no before. Kirill looks panicked and perhaps he should be.
“I--” Kirill begins, but the way Nikolai looks at him cuts that thought off dead.
“Get down on your knees,” he says.
“I don’t--"
“You don’t kneel for anyone?” Nikolai’s smile is somewhat wry. “Yes, you do.”
“But I--"
“But nothing.”
The look on Kirill’s face is awful, aghast, because not only has he been caught but he’s been caught, can’t talk his way out of this, can’t say he didn’t mean it, can’t say he was joking or he was so drunk he couldn’t be responsible for what he’s done. Nikolai knows this, knows Kirill knows this, and worst of all is Nikolai knows Kirill wants it in spite of everything in him that must be screaming to the contrary. And so he goes down hesitantly on his knees, because Nikolai told him to, looking like he’s about to sob or bolt or slit his own throat on the spot. He does nothing instead and so Nikolai takes one hand down to the back of Kirill’s head, fingers in his hair. He moves the other hand down to wrap around his own cock, stroking as Kirill watches, already half-hard but all the way there in a matter of moments.
Kirill’s eyes are wide when Nikolai brushes the tip of his cock against his lips. He does it again, rubbing the moist head of it from one corner of his mouth to the other in little teasing circles, and when he’s done Kirill licks his lips almost before he realises what he’s doing. He’s blushing furiously. His breath’s unsteady. But he still wants this and Nikolai hates himself for giving it to him, like this, humiliating.
“Open your mouth,” Nikolai says and for a moment he thinks he won’t because of that look on his face, the one that says he’s fucking terrified of what he’s doing, that he never thought he’d end up here. But then he does it, licks his lips again and opens his mouth and doesn’t resist when Nikolai pulls him closer with his fingers there tight in his hair. He doesn’t resist when Nikolai’s cock pushes into his mouth, actually pulls his lips tight around him, and after a long moment’s pause his tongue shifts against him. He doesn’t have to tell Kirill to suck him; he does it without being asked. He does it with unsteady breath, tries too hard and makes himself gag for a second, starts again and does it faster and shallower. He moves one hand, brings it up and hooks it around the base of Nikolai’s cock after another moment’s pause because apparently his sucking and touching are two different things and touching him was somehow more voluntary, took more effort, because it speaks volumes about what he really wants. And then he’s enthusiastic and he’s almost hysterical, erratic, sucking him, stroking him, his free hand pushing his own boxers down so he can stroke himself, too.
It only takes moments for Kirill to come over his own hand. It takes a few moments more for Nikolai to come in Kirill’s mouth, holding him there until he swallows around him before he lets him go, lets him pull back. But even after, Kirill’s still kneeling there on his stars as he shakes, as he hangs his head.
“Go to bed, Kirill,” Nikolai says, patting him on the cheek with one hand before he leaves the room, taking his fresh towel with him on the way.
Kirill doesn’t look at him. He’s still on his knees when Nikolai closes the bathroom door.
***
Nikolai knows it’s a dangerous game to play but nothing about his work is safe.
In the morning when he wakes there on the sofa, he knows Kirill could’ve killed him in the night and then pretended nothing had happened at all, dreamed up some kind of a retaliation killing and gone on with his life without Nikolai Luzhin present in it. As he didn’t wake up dead, he has to assume Kirill isn’t going to kill him or have him killed. At least not yet. He really has to play his cards right, work it out, anticipate.
They meet for lunch, business, signing the papers with the club’s nervous previous owners. Kirill is subdued but still talkative up to a point, even if he doesn’t so much as glance in Nikolai’s direction throughout the entire meal. He supposes that makes sense because this is something it’s going to be difficult for even Kirill’s defensive mind to compartmentalise and file away. He gave his top lieutenant a blow job last night, on his knees like that didn’t mean anything though it meant more than he could’ve even realised at the time. He’ll have been thinking about it since. Nikolai can see how he’s talking himself lower and lower, spiralling.
Drugs come in in the afternoon and though they have nothing to do with the unloading personally, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to do. Nikolai has a long way to go before he finds out where exactly they come from, who else is involved; he could tip off the British police but they’re all more concerned with closing down the entire operation than parts of it piece by piece and potentially alerting Kirill’s contacts to the problem in the process. The work always feels faintly dirty and he supposes it is but this is something he accepted a long time ago. This isn’t his first time undercover, after all. Kirill isn’t the first boss he’s betrayed.
Then there’s dinner in the evening, just like usual, Kirill’s sisters and nephews and nieces and sundry family all there because they usually are at some point or another with the other middle-class Russian ex-pats, a party in one corner who thoroughly enjoy their meals but drink a little too much and make a lot of noise that Kirill doesn’t even seem to notice at all. Kirill doesn’t look at him, spends most of the evening looking at anyone and everyone else but him, at another lieutenant who’s telling them both about how to cut heroin as if that’s in some way appropriate for dinner conversation, especially at the volume he’s talking, especially with company all around.
But slowly the restaurant empties as the evening turns to night. Family and customers leave table by table, back home or to their rooms upstairs. Nikolai hasn’t seen the family’s rooms very often but they’re larger and more numerous than it perhaps seems from the outside, generous, luxurious, on corridors like a warren, groups separated out like different homes because essentially they are. He’s sure Kirill has never had to want for anything at all. He’s sure he’s led a charmed life, aside from the obvious.
And, when everyone else has left the room, when the waiters have cleared the tables, when the staff have left for the night, Kirill finally looks at him. Nikolai understands then why he’s avoided it for the rest of the day; the expression on his face is utter devastation. He’s never seen him look like that, not even the night he didn’t kill the child that is his half-sister. Not that anyone else knows about that at all, not that they’ve seen Anna or the baby since. They’ve tried hard to avoid that.
“Are you going to tell?” Kirill says.
Nikolai laughs out loud at this; Kirill frowns because, Nikolai understands, he doesn’t know what his laughter means. He doesn’t know how ridiculous that question sounds when telling would ruin both of them.
“Are you going to tell?” he repeats.
“Take me to your room,” Nikolai says, in place of an answer, and so Kirill does. He’s taking orders well.
He’s taken his father’s room since Semyon was sentenced, redecorated it but only half moved in with clothes and associated junk there in half-neat piles on the floor and all flat surfaces, some of the boxes filled with his father’s things and not his own. Nikolai locks the door behind them and Kirill stands there in the middle of it all, just watching him in the half-light from the lamps that Nikolai turns on as he moves around the room, around him. He’s spent time dissociating Kirill’s desires, his voyeurism and what came after, from everything else in his life, from his home and his business and everything his father told him about the fact he was his son so he couldn’t be queer, he was vory v zakone so he couldn’t be queer, but this is the next step. This is the next inevitable step and he resents himself for it already.
“Take off your clothes,” Nikolai says.
Kirill blinks at him owlishly, stupidly, like what he’s just said makes no sense to him at all, and so he repeats himself in Russian and then says, “Now.”
And so he does it. It’s the first time Kirill’s had to do it for himself in all the time this has been progressing because Nikolai’s done it for him, while he’s been drunk or while he’s pretended to be and Nikolai was happy to pretend with him. Now he’s not drunk, can’t use that as an excuse because Nikolai’s seen how much he’s had to drink over dinner, and so Kirill looks at the floor or the ceiling or the door rather than looking at him as he pulls off his tie, as he unbuttons his shirt, as he strips himself naked in the middle of the bedroom that used to belong to his father and now still isn’t quite his.
“On the bed,” Nikolai says. Kirill pauses then complies, stretching out on his back, hands fidgeting at his sides like he’d like to cover up but realises it’s utterly pointless to do so; Nikolai shakes his head. “On your hands and knees.”
He sees the muscle work in Kirill’s jaw as he clenches his teeth but he’s come too far to be able to stop now; he’s already hard, Nikolai can see the jut of his erection between his thighs, so he turns, pulls himself up on his hands and knees just like he was told to and then hangs his head. Nikolai hasn’t even taken off his shoes, which likely has something to do with the way Kirill glances at him, like he’s waiting for him to undress except he doesn’t, actually doesn’t even take off his shoes in the end because he knows how effective that will be. He climbs onto the bed just as he is, fully dressed, kneels behind him, one hand going down to Kirill’s ankle to drag his legs wider apart, to expose him.
He slaps his arse then, hard, with the back of one hand, and though he tenses Kirill lets him do it again after that. He brings both hands up, parts his cheeks, squeezes; he spits at the crack of his arse, rubs the pad of one thumb down from there against his arsehole, all of Kirill’s muscles clenching so hard throughout his body that it makes Nikolai laugh out loud. Kirill tries not to react to the sound but fails.
There’s Vaseline sitting on the bedside cabinet. Nikolai supposes he doesn’t want to know why – maybe he has chapped lips – but he moves away for a moment and takes it, opens it, taking a look at Kirill’s expression before he moves back onto the bed. He looks petrified, which is an odd look on him, like he’s committed some kind of unforgiveable, unmentionable sin or somehow everyone knows, everyone knows what he’s doing there, everyone’s laughing at him as he waits for Nikolai to do to him what he’s wanted him to do since the day they met. Nikolai smears the stuff thickly between Kirill’s cheeks, wipes his fingers on the bed linen and unbuckles his belt; he flips his tie back over one shoulder, tucks his shirt up out of the way, pushes his trousers and underwear down over his hips, like this is all just a job he has to do and perhaps in part it is. Then he slicks himself thickly and guides the blunt tip of his erection up against the crack of Kirill’s arse, rubs it there against his arsehole. He’s so fucking ashamed that he’s excited by this. He should stop, he should leave, but he knows he can’t.
“Should I stop?” Nikolai asks, like he’s giving them both a way out when he knows it’s nothing like that. Kirill shakes his head, the muscles in his neck so taut the motion looks painful. “Say it.”
“Don’t stop,” he says. And his voice is so tight it barely sounds like him. So Nikolai doesn’t stop. He pushes against him, pushes into him, pushes inside him, bit by bit, the process slow because Kirill is so fucking tense but so fucking needy. Nikolai hates that Kirill still wants this, but he supposes he knew he would. It’s how he thinks it should be, when Nikolai bucks his hips against him, as his hands go tight at his thighs and his pelvis slaps against him. Kirill thinks it should hurt because he shouldn’t want it at all. He thinks the reality of what he wants should be punishment for wanting it.
Kirill comes first, minutes later, over Nikolai’s hand though he barely had to touch at all to get him there. Nikolai’s last, not long after that. He comes inside him and once he’s caught his breath and pulled back out he leaves him there, alone.
He takes a drink before he goes to bed, and then another. But he’s still thinking about Kirill as he finally falls asleep. Kirill’s not the one who has a reason to feel ashamed.
***
It’s not that he doesn’t like Kirill, he thinks the following day. He thinks the same thing the day after that. He thinks the same thing on the third day, too, and for the two weeks after that. It’s not that he dislikes Kirill, but there’s only one way he’s ever going to get everything he needs, only one way the job will ever be finished, and he doesn’t want to stay in London forever. He doesn’t want to die in the fucking Russian mob.
He wakes in his own bed and not on the couch for once, wakes alone and showers and dresses and goes about his business, the business, their business. Kirill has given him the club. He asked him to the night before and Kirill said yes, had no objections, not that Nikolai supposed he would though it’s not just because he’s the best man for the job, even if that’s it as far as any of them know. He’s loyal and he’s ruthless; he’s one of those things, at least.
He asked him there in Kirill’s bedroom where they’ve been each night for a week, then two weeks, where he’s fucked him on his knees on the floor, bent over the bath, pressed up against the door so hard it bruised Kirill’s cheekbone. He made him blow him one night in the restaurant after the doors were closed, where anyone could walk in and see though he knew that was dangerous, very nearly reckless if he hadn’t known the doors were locked. He made him jerk himself off naked on his knees as Nikolai watched him, fully clothed. He took grainy, shaky photos of him on Kirill’s own new phone and showed them to him while he bent him over the dresser, called him names it makes him sick to say. Kirill just took it. Kirill always takes it. It keeps Nikolai awake at night more often than he’d like to think.
He goes to the club. There’s someone else who does the books but he’s the manager, he’s got his fingers officially in all of the pies and once the doors open the dancing isn’t the only business they do. He’ll get the answers he’s looking for this way, he’s sure, and maybe even sooner and not later. Maybe one day he can go home, though home’s a fairly nebulous concept.
In the evening, he has dinner with Kirill as usual. Kirill isn’t listening as the others talk, is playing with his food, drinking too much, just the way he’s done for the past two weeks’ worth of evenings. He squeezes his wine glass without paying real attention and Nikolai watches him do it, can see how it’s going to end but lets him do it anyway despite himself, watches until the glass breaks and he’s dripping blood all over the tablecloth, cursing. Nikolai reaches over as the table hushes, fingers around Kirill’s wrist though he tries to snatch his hand away. He plucks a small shard of the glass from his palm, drops it into the remains of the broken glass and wraps a napkin tightly around Kirill’s hand.
“Come with me,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.” He waves off all the others’ concerns and so they let them go because Nikolai is more than capable of taking care of anything he sets his mind to. No one is surprised he knows first aid since he knows its opposite so well.
They sit upstairs in the master bathroom and Nikolai’s fingers circle Kirill’s wrist, feel his pulse there though what he’s doing is keeping him still, not keeping him alive. He washes out the cuts with water and then with antiseptic, making Kirill curse though he’s still only looking at him in snatches of glances, in the mirror sometimes. He tapes a dressing in place over the top and passes Kirill the vodka bottle he picked up along the way; if they’re not going to the hospital, and they’re definitely not, the alcohol will help with the pain if not the blood. And then, while the restaurant is still open downstairs, while their colleagues are still downstairs, he takes Kirill into the bedroom and he pointedly doesn’t lock the door. He leans back against it instead, while Kirill sits down on the edge of the bed.
“Papa wouldn’t have approved,” Kirill says, eyeing his bandaged hand, but it’s not his hand he’s talking about, it’s everything else. It’s the fact his male subordinate is fucking him nightly. It’s the fact that he can’t refuse Nikolai anything at all, not one single thing, and sometimes he tests that. Nikolai knows he’s the one who’s really in control here because he’s in control of Kirill, and no, Kirill’s father would not have approved of that. He’d have rather slit his throat than let him do this.
“No,” Nikolai agrees. “He wouldn’t have approved.” Saying it doesn’t help.
He moves closer, walks across the room to Kirill’s bed and he stands in front of him, right there in front of him, so close he just can’t be ignored though Kirill rarely actually ignores him these days. Then he brings his hands to Kirill’s cheeks and leans down, presses his mouth to Kirill’s forehead.
“Your papa tried to have me killed,” Nikolai says, leaning down farther, close by Kirill’s ear. “Your papa ordered you to kill your baby sister. Do you care what he approves of?”
Kirill takes an unsteady breath because this is what Nikolai has done to him, what his father did to him before. London wasn’t what made Kirill the way he is at all; he’s the sum of all his father’s work. Nikolai’s just taken it a little further.
“The Chechens wanted to kill you,” Nikolai goes on. “Do you think you deserved it, for having a man killed who told the truth?”
Kirill closes his eyes, squeezes them shut and so Nikolai presses his lips against one lid, then the other.
“What do you think you deserve?”
Kirill just shakes his head like he doesn’t know the answer and so Nikolai straightens up, moves back just far enough that he can slap him, hard, straight across his face. Kirill looks at him then, eyes opening quickly, just a second’s flare of anger before there’s something else replacing it and of all the things Nikolai’s ever done he dislikes this thing the most. Kirill drops his head into his hands, rubs his eyes and then looks up at him again. Kirill thinks Nikolai should hurt him. For all the things he wants, he thinks that’s what he deserves. It turns Nikolai’s stomach to see it in him.
“You deserve better than this,” he says, though he knows what he meant to say, what he planned to say, was something different. He meant to take him as low as he could go then force him lower, make him still more malleable with it till there’s no fight left in him at all. But, as Kirill frowns and rubs the cut on the palm of his hand over the bandage, rubs hard in a way Nikolai’s sure will make it bleed straight through the gauze, he has to wonder if maybe he’s gone in totally the wrong direction, if something else could work instead. Perhaps there are only so many reprehensible things he can do in his life before reaching saturation point because suddenly that’s it, he can’t fuck him up any more, any further or any more extensively than he already has. He’s done unspeakable things without a second’s hesitation but he’s killing Kirill and he can’t. He can’t.
Nikolai moves, bends down, his nose and cheek skimming under Kirill’s jaw and then he presses his mouth to his, not hard, not like any other time before. Kirill freezes but Nikolai persists, sucking at his lower lip, fingers at the back of his neck, thumb brushing one ear, and then Kirill’s in it, too, like he can’t believe this is what Nikolai wants tonight, like he’ll make the most of it if it is. His hands skim the back of Nikolai’s thighs, hesitant, so Nikolai pulls him up, pulls him in against him. Kirill’s taller but it works, Kirill’s used to kissing women like he’s trying to make himself believe he’s everything his father wanted him to be and so perhaps Kirill being taller works, for now. Except nothing else about it will be similar to him, the pickle of day-old stubble at Nikolai’s jaw, the solid press of his body with none of the curves those women he tries with have because Kirill always goes for the biggest breasts, the longest hair, the widest hips, like he’s trying to find the most stereotypically womanly woman in creation because maybe that will make him want her, make him normal, make him right. Nikolai doesn’t want to change him. He wants to tell him he doesn’t have to change.
Then Nikolai pulls back, slowly; Kirill looks at him like he’s not sure if he should wait or flee the scene. He waits, perhaps because he knows he wouldn’t get far, perhaps because he wants to see what will happen next.
“Undress me,” Nikolai says. Kirill frowns again. “Each piece you take off me, take off you, too.”
So that’s what he does, looking like it’s the single strangest thing he’s ever done in his life though he’s done some terrible things, some unthinkable things, and they both know that. He takes off Nikolai’s tie, then he takes off his own and he drops them onto the rug. He takes off Nikolai’s jacket then he takes off his own and adds those to the growing pile. He strips him to the waist then does the same with himself, goes down into a crouch to unlace shoes that they toe off and aside, pulls off socks, unbuckles buckles. He slides Nikolai’s trousers down over his hips, takes off his own and then turns to Nikolai’s boxers with a glance at his face and Nikolai nods like Kirill was maybe waiting for permission, asking for approval. Perhaps he was, but then they’re both naked and it’s not like the times in the bathhouse. It’s nothing like that at all because Nikolai’s hands go up to rest warmly over the stars at Kirill’s shoulders and Kirill does the same a second later, like they’re covering up the parts that make this thing they maybe have, that Kirill’s wanted since the start and Nikolai’s not sure he didn’t too, impossible.
He pushes Kirill down to sit on the edge of the bed again. He kisses him, again, slowly, kisses his mouth and his neck and the star at one shoulder, lingering there, his hands moving over him in a way they’ve never done before and suddenly he feels poorer for that. And then he pulls back and smiles faintly, the gesture feeling so very unfamiliar, making Kirill’s brows knit in surprise or in confusion, and he gets down on his knees on the floor; it shows as much contempt for the stars and the vory v zakone as it shows the extent of what he’d do for Kirill, the extent of what he wants from him, and he feels his own chest clench when he knows that’s true. He’s worked so long it’s natural to forget everything he wants, to set it aside, sublimate. In some ways, he’s just like Kirill. Everything he's done to Kirill he's done to himself, too.
When he runs his palms over Kirill’s thighs, glancing up to meet his gaze just for a fraction of a second, when he takes him into his mouth on his knees on the floor, it’s not contempt it shows. It shows something else entirely.
***
The club does well. It has an existing client base in place so once the paperwork goes through the transition afterwards is close to seamless when Nikolai moves into the office. It’s easy, more or less, but it feels like a triumph nonetheless. He’s never managed a club before, though it’s not vastly unlike other things he’s done.
Kirill visits almost daily and so a table is reserved for him. He does business there, has his discussions in Russian away from the restaurant because most of the girls in the club can’t understand, and Nikolai is always there on hand and that’s useful for both of them. Then they return to the restaurant for dinner, away from the girls who Nikolai’s slowly ceased to chase, and they don’t talk business. Kirill slowly brightens into himself again, smiles and makes jokes that the others laugh at and for once it’s all genuine; he’s not Semyon but they like him, he has a sense of humour, he knows who he can trust and they all trust him in return, trust Nikolai because he does what has to be done. Kirill includes him in everything; he’s his most trusted lieutenant, always there. That is a triumph, it doesn’t just feel that way.
Past midnight two months, three months later, they go up to Nikolai’s new flat and stay there, in the king size bed he bought because Kirill always seems to sprawl in his sleep. The relative ease of it didn’t come in a day or in a night because everything he’d done took time to undo, nights of lying naked there in Kirill’s bed bringing him off with his hands as they kissed, nights where all he did was fuck him with his fingers while he sucked him off, made him writhe with it. He pressed his mouth to every inch of Kirill’s body and let him do the same to him, let him trace the outlines of every tattoo, let his hands stray between his legs to explore there, too. It’s taken time for Kirill to be able to touch him like that without balking at it, without shutting off and shutting down though they both know he wants it, but he’s getting there. Sometimes it’s just easier for Kirill to touch than be touched. Maybe it always will be.
In the morning, late because they’ve found that’s how the club business works and it’s always been how Kirill works, Kirill straddles Nikolai’s hips and they screw that way, Kirill reaching back to guide him up inside him; neither of them cares that Kirill’s on his knees again. They’ve both knelt for each other more times than they can count, stars be damned.
This isn’t something Kirill wanted, and Nikolai knows that. Kirill wanted to want a woman, wanted to want to have kids and raise a family and be just like his father always was. Except he’s not his father and what his father thinks doesn’t count anymore, maybe never did, but it’s taken this long to convince him of that, day by day, to get even this far. Nikolai takes him aside in quiet moments, into the office at the club, into the alley by the restaurant, into bedrooms, into the back seat of his car. He presses their mouths together, presses their hips together, shows Kirill that his father’s fucking homophobia doesn’t need to be his. He kisses him till he’s breathless with it, so he knows his father wasn’t always right. Most of the time he was surprisingly far from it.
They go out to the club and Kirill makes phone calls from his mobile in Russian while Nikolai interviews a string of new girls. He has them dance a little and Kirill watches idly, lounging in a booth across the room; Nikolai still wonders if he’s trying to summon some level of attraction. Then they sit together after the candidates are gone, shoulder to shoulder in their suits, Nikolai’s hand on Kirill’s thigh; they go into the office and Nikolai blows him while he’s on the phone, making his voice strain, making him laugh. Kirill doesn't ask what changed. Nikolai can only think he doesn't ask because he doesn't want to break the spell and find they're right back where they started.
They’re keeping it quiet, of course, would be even if that weren’t just good practice in an organisation like this one. Kirill’s coming round to the idea he doesn’t have to hate what he is, who he is, who he can be when he’s with Nikolai, even if he does still hate himself sometimes. And when he’s drunk too much and he’s maudlin and wallowing deep in self-pity, when he’s sitting at a table in the restaurant after hours or he’s in Nikolai’s sitting room drinking all his vodka while he hums old, depressing songs under his breath, Nikolai sighs and he slaps him across the face, abrupt. The burst of anger he gets from it is usually enough to break him out of it. They fight, they fuck, sometimes they bruise each other, sometimes it’s just like it was before because sometimes that’s what excites them but when Kirill kneels on the bed and touches himself while Nikolai watches, they’re both as turned on as each other, there’s no more humiliation there. He understands exactly how Kirill works. Sometimes he thinks it’d be a relief for Kirill to know how he works, too.
The work’s coming together, piece by piece. He’s building the full picture, piece by piece. He knows names and places, contacts, routes; he’s getting there, to the men in Russia at the heart of it all, to everything the vory touch. Perhaps another month or two and then they’ll bring it all down, the drugs and the girls. They’ll devastate the whole fucking network, even if they know sensibly they’ll rise up again after that. But there’ll be someone else there to take it apart again next time because it won’t be him.
“Kolya,” Kirill says, that night, once he’s opened up the door to Nikolai’s flat. He smiles, a little drunk as he leans against the doorframe, and Nikolai raises his brows, amused, leaves the couch and goes to him.
He’ll stay the night and Nikolai doesn’t mind that. It’s not that he dislikes Kirill, just like he’s thought all along; it’s not that he dislikes him, not that he wishes him any particular ill. They strip and they slip into bed together, under sheets and under duvet in the winter chill, mouths meeting in the dark. Their hands are hot on each other’s skin, on tattoos that are invisible when the lights are off.
It’s not that he dislikes Kirill, so he thinks perhaps he’ll warn him when the time comes. Perhaps he’ll tell him everything about who he is and what he does and see what happens next, tell him you’re with them or you’re with me and then perhaps Kirill won’t wrap his hands around his neck and squeeze. Perhaps he won’t feel like he’s been betrayed. Maybe he’ll feel like Nikolai’s saved him, and maybe he will have.
“Kolya,” Kirill says, gasps as Nikolai pushes into him, hands tight at his hips.
Perhaps one day he’ll tell him Nikolai isn’t his name; perhaps Kirill won’t care, can learn another name instead and none of this will matter. He’s been waiting to get his life back from his work for nearly thirty years and Kirill never belonged here in the first place, not the way he’s been made to live. The first life he was ordered to take was a baby’s and he didn’t, he couldn’t, and Nikolai thinks maybe he loves him for that as much as he hates Semyon for giving the order. Kirill is everything Semyon’s not. Kirill is everything Nikolai’s not; not now, but he'll adapt just like he always does.
After, they’ll go to sleep, and in the morning he’ll tell him or he won’t. But for now, not even their stars matter.