LIFE ON FIRE [RESERVED]

[Slansky Kirov]

The train-car was exceedingly dim, lit only by the flicker of a lantern turned onto the lowest setting. Slansky marveled at the way it cast flickers of light and shadow across her face, adding emphasis to her features in a way that he had grown accustomed to. He was not as aware, but the light also played across the naked lines of his chest and abdomen, accenting both the his muscles and his scars. This was his favorite time of day, after hard work and after greeting her (in multiple ways) when the two of them laid side by side, with no expectations and few words. Of course, the silence rarely lasted and he was fine with this. He liked their conversations as much as he liked anything else about their relationship. He had been laying on his side, facing her, but now Slansky propped himself on an elbow and gazed down at Akane. The blankets were tugged down around their waists, showing both his skin and her own. He could not help but reach out a hand (it was a habit he had become accustomed to during the last few weeks) and run his fingertips over her stomach, tracing circles around her naval. Slansky did not need words to say what he was thinking; she was beautiful and he was happy. She had begun to show, her stomach distended so slightly that it would be difficult for most people to notice. "Anicka?" Slansky asked with a smile. It was a game he had taken to playing. He would suggest names, female or male, randomly to see if she approved. He did not mention that this name was that of his mother. "Or Dema," Slansky added, in thickly accented shiftertongue. "... That's a boy's name." He leaned close to kiss her nose and then her mouth. Slansky did not mean for it to escalate beyond a kiss, but he quickly discovered that his hands were braced lustily on her hips and her own fingers roamed the skin of his chest and abdomen. He pulled back to laugh huskily. "Moy dorogoy, this is what got us into trouble." His comment was relatively playful, despite himself.

[AKANE]

The evening was fire and ice in harmony, creating their forms as they lay quietly but for a few moments panting. His large calloused hands on her stomach were soothing, as appose to her idea when she had first become with child and thought the hands of another would tickle her (as any had in the past had,) but now with Slansky it seemed right - and she smiled and placed her petite hand over his. "I like, Aleerah? Ally for short?" She questioned, then thought of some of the Czech names they had spoken about, “Or Dusan?” A male name, meaning the Soul or the spirit. His hands found her hips and her breath was drawn in sharply in pleasure when his words about ‘trouble’ were murmured against her ear. She flipped their positions easily so she were atop him, before she smiled wolfishly and showed him just what kind of of trouble. “What’s the worse that could happen?” she asked coyly, then gave a gasp. “I get knocked up?” Her face immediately quirked in a sarcastic manner, then stilled in a quiet beauty. He’d said he loved her, and she’d admitted truthfully to the same. In only a few breaths they were entangled yet again. It was a long while before they were once more still; Akane tucked into Slan's arms - her fingers tracing over the numerous scares his skin had endured. Akane had seen minor 'scars' and 'burn marks' before, but on Slan they surpassed much of his epidermis. Her fingers feather over the grades, often dropping to kiss each mark without judgement or hesitation. After a while, she asked. “Sweets … what happened to you?” Her voice was peculiar; Between curiosity and first notice consideration, as appose to guilt or pity. Her Slan was strong, and would not tolerate anything less ... so Akane had asked him straight forward. TRANSLATIONS____

[Slansky Kirov]

"Dusan," he repeated, contentedly. It was one of his favorite names so far, out of the lot of them. But his attention was quickly diverted to the feel of her skin beneath her fingertips and the way her breath caught in response to his touch. It caused a slight, smug smirk to grace the edge of his mouth. However, it vanished quickly as she moved to straddle him. Slansky should not have been surprised, knowing her, but he was. That did not mean he was unhappy with the new position. His eyes lowered from her face to the line of her collarbone and then her chest. His mouth was dry; Slansky forced his gaze back to her eyes. "... Too late," he replied, wickedly, before pulling her toward him. - - - - - His eyes were heavily lidded in the aftermath, almost closed entirely. He was content to hold her now, still breathless as he was, and her touch calmed him in a way that he had grown accustomed to. So accustomed to, in fact, he forgot about the scars that she was touching so lightly. It had been a long time since Slansky felt self conscious in front of her. He had initially shied from her gaze, quick to dress or extinguish the light, for fear of judgement as well as a sense of... vulnerability. It was strange, in many respects, that he was the one to feel doubt when she was so much younger than he. He cracked open an eye to regard her when she asked her inquiry. He sighed, then. The question had been prolonged but, ultimately, Slansky knew that it was unavoidable. He ran his hand through her hair lightly, thinking of how to word his reply. "You know I was a part of the politsiya in Moscow." It was a rhetorical question. He had told her some of his stories, although not this one. His voice was atypically subdued as he continued; but he owed her this honesty. It might have made it easier, if nothing else. The memory was still fresh with him. It showed in the way that he avoided the Fallen bonfires like the plague and how he was nervous around even some of the smallest flames. In his mind's eye, he saw the dark silhouette of his attackers and he could smell the gasoline. "The politsiya in Russia are corrupt, especially in Moscow. Most of them aren't honest. They get paid under the table by the crime lords to let them off and most of them do it." Slansky twisted a piece of her hair, forming an absentminded curl around his finger. In all actuality, he was anything but relaxed. "I was one of the honest ones and I got burned for it." He meant for the pun to come out funny, but it didn't. It was serious, devoid of humor. Slansky cleared his throat. "I pissed off the wrong man, I guess. He was trying to kill me when he had his men put gasoline on my clothes and lit me on fire." He did not like how tragic it sounded, as though it were the bad part of a television show. He thought of how to word it in a better fashion, but could find none. He was being honest; it happened, after all. There were bad people out there. But what else could he have told her? That he had tracked down the man and killed him, just because he had nothing to live for? Could he admit the fact he had been at his worst outside of the Menagerie? No, Slansky could not. He could not find the courage to do so, not yet. "I had a coworker who was looking out for me. He heard about the plan and called an ambulance and fire truck before the man even lit me on fire. So they saved me."

[AKANE]

You know I was part of the politsiya in Moscow, he began and she nodded. His tone was – unusual. Had another listened in on the conversation they might have thought he were telling a fairytale; his tone quiet in cadence with gravid pauses. However, Akane’s ears picked up the unnatural rhythm of his breaths, the way his hands fussed over her nervously. … had his men pour gasoline on my clothes … The girl was grateful that she was not facing him. He spooned her from behind, and they lay entwined perfectly. Her fingers brushing soothingly over his arm, and lit me on fire. The soothing digits froze, as did every part of her, including her face – her light eyes frozen wide in horror. She had thought… what had she thought? Maybe that he’d been caught in a fire, a burning building, he’d fallen maybe. But … not this. In her mind a scorching fire ravaged once flawless skin, and the screams, the screams. Evil men smirking, the loud sirens and smell … to smell your own They saved me. Akane turned in his arms to press every inch of herself she could against him, her own arms wrapping around his head, possessively, lovingly. There were no words. What could one say in response to such an evil act? I’m sorry? She would never pity him like that. No, her Slansky was a proud upright man and would not, could not stand for it. Instead, she waited until she could trust her voice and whispered, ”I owe a man a great debt that I don’t even know.” She pulled back to gaze fathomlessly at his face, pushing his hair from his beautiful eyes, and gently kissed each of his eyelids, cheeks, then lips. Her own lips pulled into a semblance of a small brave smile, but the look on his face changed it into a real one and she kissed him again and hugged him as hard as she could. For some reason, the night she’d awakened in nightmares by this man (followed by an exchange of such hurtful words) passed in her mind like a fast-forward button, however the moment she had dashed from under the train car into his arms and promised she’d always stay with him - played perfectly in her memory and she squeezed him all the more. TRANSLATIONS____

[Slansky Kirov]

Slansky Kirov was fully there bodily; he could feel the warmth of her and the subtle tensions that blossomed both beneath his fingertips and after the deliverance of his shocking, albeit calmly spoken, words. But he was less there mentally. His mind was full of the vivid memories his story brought forth. He did not recollect the brutal, painful parts of the experience immediately, as one may have expected. Instead Slansky thought of the mild discomforts, such as the way the constraints at his wrist had rubbed his skin raw. The warehouse had been drafty with the winter outside so that, when they splashed him with gasoline, it was a shock so cold he had begun to shudder almost immediately. Through the cracked door, he had seen the gentle snowfall outside. Slansky Kirov had always thought that capture had been a possibility. He had always tried so hard to be courageous and eventually that courage and moral integrity led him to that empty chair, staring down the gangsters and thugs of their city streets. Slan thought about the irony of it; the fact that it was the good who were punished so utterly, as though everything in this world ought to be corrupted. He felt her stir beside him, drawing him from the reverie briefly as she turned in his arms. ”I owe a man a great debt that I don’t even know.” Slansky held her gaze for an endless span of time. But then he closed them, so as to better enjoy the entirety of the moment; so that he could feel her rather than see her. It was something that drew him into the moment completely so as to remind him that those bitter aspects of his past were long behind him and they certainly did not define him. Slansky had never thought that someone would be able to steal him of his barriers but somehow she managed. With his lips still against hers (after that soft, feather-light kiss) Slansky spoke. "Oh, Akane. You don't need to know a man's tragedies to know the man himself. They may shape him but they should not define him, unless he is to be bitter and cruel from the memories." A part of him felt as though he were lying to her, because he was certainly bitter over the past. He had too many regrets. What he remembered the most was not the fear, which had left a taste in his mouth he could not describe nor recollect accurately. What he remembered the most was the solitude, the complete and utter loneliness as Demaovich regarded him, flicking the sulfur match. "Net odin idet," he had said with a shrug. They were the truest words of Slansky's past, something that accurately described much of it. There is no one coming. Not for him. Slansky opened his eyes, a fragile hope in his chest. That is different now, the Czech-Russian thought, moving to kiss her again. His hand lay on her stomach, caressing the slight swell. His mother had been family, but it was just she and the broken memory of his father. There had been no one else. No one in the politsiya had acted as family to him, or close to him. But now there were those who cared, genuinely. Akane was one of the few. Fallen became a group that Slansky trusted. "It does not bother me as much as it used to," he confessed, before drawing one of her hands along the smooth scars stretching the expanse of his chest and side. He kissed her again, slowly, so as to better savor it. But he was not telling her the whole of it. There was so much to the story that went unsaid and would continue to go unsaid. There were things a man would take to his grave, if he could.

[AKANE]

There was a weighted silence, steeped into dark secrets that Akane could hear between his words. Like the blackness of a silhouette that created the image, but most ignored in favor of the lighted color. When he kissed her she returned the affection with interest, then signed once heavily before stealing a deep breath through her nose. Her eyes closed and she held it for several moments, and released it. Always. There would always be a starvation in her for knowledge, but what he did not speak of she would not seek, if only for one reason; Husher. Her father’d had many, many secrets her entire life that he simply could not talk about. Usually it was not his information to share, he wanted to protect her or … (just as often) it was simply too hard. It was the ‘simply too hard’ lines that were called into Slan's eyes now, the marks of stress, and wear, and death that crowded his features, and altogether she wished she had never asked him. Her hands slid carefully under his hand where his palm traced his marks and when he looked to her again the corners of her mouth lifted. ”Will … will you sing to me?” her hand traced up to his jawline, and her thumb shifted against his stubble affectionately. Once, quite a while back she had found him humming some kind of Czech song that he had mumbled his mother had sung to him as a little boy. There was something about his voice that soothed her (akin to how his mother's memory seemed to sooth him) and she turned, tucking herself against him and closed her eyes. She hummed the first couple of bars in the middle of the song, the part that she remembered, hoping he would catch the tune she meant and sing it for her. They both seemed to need a comforting distraction right now. "Just for a little while?" TRANSLATIONS____

[Slansky Kirov]

Akane always had a penchant for understanding what he needed, and when. Despite the fact Slansky knew she had to be burning with curiosity she allowed the subject at hand to slip; she did not pursue the line of conversation and, instead, caught him entirely by surprise with her request. The Czech-Russian's brows hitched. "I am a very bad singer," Slan protested. Besides that, it took him a moment to remember what she even wanted him to sing. Her humming, albeit as off as his voice would be, reminded him of the ukolébavka. "I need to learn how to say no to you, woman," Slan growled, his lips against her throat, but she had already accomplished something very few could; she had gotten his mind out of the past and into the present. He shifted against her, so as to prop himself on one elbow. He looked down, then, the edge of his mouth quirking into an almost haphazard smile--it looked as though it would not stay for long. But she was so beautiful, so peaceful. With her eyes closed and her thick, dark hair splayed out like that... Slansky wanted to touch her, but he felt that to do so in that moment would rouse her and he could almost pretend that he was singing her to sleep. "Slunce za hory zmizelo v dali, utichli ptaci, usina raj; sedime spolu, sero nas hali, pisnicko zaznej a hudbo hraj/Zepredu nazad se kolibame, zepredu nazad se kolibem." His voice was low, husky, and off-key. His accent was even more prevalent when he spoke the language, especially choked with sentiment. His affection was clear for her as he sung. "Slunce za hory zmizelo v dali, utichli ptaci, usina raj; sedime spolu, sero nas hali, pisnicko zaznej a hudbo hraj/Nahoru dolu se kolibame, nahoru dolu se kolibem." Was it ironic that he could remember his mother singing the exact same lullaby as he lay in the hospital bed, covered in bandages? It was also the ukolébavka she had sung after his father had died, to Slansky and Slansky alone. It seemed as though it came hand-in-hand with tragedy. "Slunce za hory zmizelo v dali, utichli ptaci, usina raj; sedime spolu, sero nas hali, pisnicko zaznej a hudbo hraj/Z leva napravo se kolibame, z leva napravo se kolibem. Slunce za hory zmizelo v dali, utichli ptaci, usina raj; sedime spolu, sero nas hali, pisnicko zaznej a hudbo hraj. Na vsechny strany se kolibame, na vsechny strany se kolibem." With those last words he settled down beside her, on his side, so that he could still see her face. His hand remained intertwined with her own on her stomach; he leaned forward, resting his forehead against her shoulder. Slansky's eyes were closed. translations: ukolébavka - Czech term for lullaby, there is no translation for the song :c Although it is titled Sluce Za Hory, which means "Sun Behind the Mountains". So that's the gist of it!