Four
Arseny
The trick about this base is that it never really sleeps; it pretends to.
The lights go off in the barracks, the mess hall empties, the yard clears, but there’s always something humming.
Generators, distant engines, pipes complaining in the walls, or the wind howling like it’s trying to strip the paint off the buildings out of spite.
Up here on the roof, though, it’s the quietest it ever gets.
I shoulder the heavy access door shut with a metal thunk that echoes in the dark, and shove my hands into my coat pockets. Murmansk at night in winter doesn’t just get cold; it becomes cold. The cold bites at everything it can reach, climbing into your bones and refusing to leave.
I should be downstairs in my bunk asleep. Or even be writing the report I’ve been pretending doesn’t exist for three days. Instead, I’m up here, pacing slow lines across ice-dusted concrete, trying to walk off the buzzing under my skin.
I pull a cigarette from the battered pack in my pocket, clamp it between my teeth, and cup my hands around the lighter.
The wind makes a half-hearted attempt to fight me; I win.
Of course. A little orange flame flickers, brief and bright, then comes the familiar rasp of smoke clawing down my throat.
Much better.
I stare out across the base while my lungs burn. The blocky shapes of buildings crouch in the dark. There’s the faint suggestion of the airfield beyond, and the runway lamps stretching into the black. I exhale and watch my breath and smoke twist together before they vanish.
“Idiots,” I mutter to myself. Who, exactly, is a good question. On paper, today went fine. A joint briefing where no one shouted or defected mid-PowerPoint. No one accidentally insulted someone else’s entire chain of command, and the CO said ‘interoperability’ only three times.
A small miracle.
The British contingent were... fine. Six of them. All neat in the front row, all lined up, backs straight, trying so hard to look like they weren’t trying at all. And my brother, Senior Sergeant Nikorin Zakirov, golden boy, pain in my ass, did his whole calm, competent, steady-hand routine.
The one that makes junior officers feel safe, and privates forget they’re terrified. Calm, focused, immovable — the good Zakirov brother.
And then there was him. Lance Corporal Caiden Varrik. Of Her Majesty’s Overcompensating Expeditionary Whatever.
Up close, he was all angles and tension, standing as if he was braced for impact. Almost as if someone told him the entire world was his responsibility, and he believed them.
I hate that type.
I take another drag and let my mind rewind — because apparently, I hate myself.
He keeps looking at Niko. It’s not a constant thing where he’s obviously drooling. No, that would have been easy to mock, easy enough to crush. His eyes flicked over him just enough for me to take notice.
The CO talked about insertion routes; his attention was forward. The translator stumbled, and he glanced sideways. There was Niko, pen in hand, correcting coordinates that another officer butchered, and Varrik’s eyes snagged on him for a second, then they moved on.
Most people wouldn’t notice that sort of thing, but most people don’t watch a room as I do.
I saw it. The pattern. Always Niko. Always in the in-between spaces.
Small flashes of attention when my brother cracked a joke, and the colonel frowned.
The almost smile when Niko rolled his eyes behind someone’s back.
That slight shift, the first time Niko translated something for his men instead of making them sit through the official version.
Admiration, respect, and the beginnings of something else — if he doesn’t kill it quickly. I can spot that look from twenty metres away and through a migraine. “Idiot,” I say again, flicking ash over the edge of the roof instead.
Niko doesn’t see it. Why would he? He never sees it when it’s about him. The man could name every explosion type by sound, but can’t tell when someone thinks the sun rises and sets in his stupid face.
I grind my cigarette out under my boot, then immediately light another.
After the briefing, Niko dragged him over like a proud child showing off a new toy.
The poor bastard had eyes like a sniper scope.
Green, sharp, and focused. They hit me and I felt the evaluation tick over in his head.
Rank, posture, age, threat level. He hid it well, and most wouldn’t catch it. But I did.
“Sir,” he said — Solid, polite, no wobble or grovelling. Which is good, I hate grovellers. He’s the sort of man who showers on schedule and probably folds his socks the same way every time and irons the creases out of his feelings.
“I’ve read your file,” he said. Because apparently, we were starting with flattery — or reconnaissance. Hard to tell which.
“I thought they’d scrubbed all the fun bits,” I told him. He didn’t flinch, points for that at least. Some people get nervous when you lean into them. He didn’t, which is better for me. It gives me something to push against.
He talked about ‘productivity’ like a report, and I teased him out of it to see if he’d follow, which he did. He even admitted Niko was better than expected. I liked that answer, more than I would ever admit out loud.
Then he retreated behind phrases about secure systems and lab hours like smokescreens, and as he walked away, my brain did the thing where it started categorising.
Good at his job, overthinks, controls his expressions, doesn’t quite control his eyes, and watches my brother as if he matters. I felt something sour and sharp coil in my stomach at that. Not jealousy, don’t be stupid — just mild annoyance.
Niko collects strays; it’s one of his worst habits. Bring home a shell-shocked private here, a stray dog there, a bleeding officer he’ll patch up and send back out with a pep talk and a pat on the head.
He cares too much. He always has.
Men like Varrik see that and latch on like vines on a wall. It’s not malicious, it’s not even conscious, I don’t think. They just... orient themselves around it, around him. And in Russia, orienting yourself around another man like that is how you get shot in the back of the head on a training day.
I didn’t intend to watch him on the training yard; that part was an accident — mostly. I happened to be walking past, my legs happened to take me closer, and the fence happened to be there to lean on.
Then I stayed long enough to run a full threat assessment on his soul.
He’s exactly the sort of man who will die in a ditch for people who’ll forget his name in ten minutes. Men like that are dangerous because they don’t go down alone.
He saw me at the fence — his awareness radius is almost respectable — he didn’t pretend otherwise; he came over without hesitation, attention fully on me. “Enjoying the show, Sergeant?” he asked. Cheeky. Cheeky enough to be useful because it gives me an excuse to bite.
“Six out of ten,” I said, and he rolled with it. He asked if I had a schedule. This man, the same age as me, lower in rank, standing in my country, asked me if I had a schedule, as if we were discussing a training rotation.
You’d think that would make me hate him. It did. Sort of. It also made me want to see what would happen if I knocked his neat schedule on the floor.
Men like Varrik are built on rules. Habits layered into discipline, discipline mistaken for self-control. They stack expectations on their own shoulders until they can barely stand. Add one wrong weight and they don’t crack; they shatter.
My brother is allergic to that kind of collapse. He’ll throw himself under the load for them if I let him. I’m not letting some Brit walk into my base and take my brother down in the blast radius.
So yes, I pushed. He went back to his run, and I stood there, feeling something like a storm not yet overhead, just a tiny smudge on the horizon.
Dinner was worse; it felt like a stage set someone shoved me onto halfway through act two without a script. I spotted them before I even got my tray. Niko laughed at something, his head tipped back, throat bare, eyes crinkling. Varrik watched him like a man watching the only light in a dark room.
Danger, my brain whispered.
So, obviously, I went and sat with them because I’m a problem solver, or I'm nosy.
Maybe I wanted to see what would happen up close instead of from a distance — not because I care who he looks at.
No. Let him crush on every officer from here to Vladivostok and break his own heart in seven different accents.
But Niko? He doesn’t understand the game he’s in. He thinks this joint exercise is about trust, cooperation, and mutual respect. He believes the pamphlet version. He thinks that if everyone does their job, no one dies for nothing. He still believes that, somehow, even after everything.
This British idiot with that earnest, half-stray air about him is going to see that and gravitate toward it more. Then one day, someone else will see him looking and they won’t be as amused as I am.
He accused me of watching him. He wasn’t wrong — which is annoying.
“Difference is, I know exactly what I’m doing,” I told him, and I do.
Mostly. I’m testing, poking, and seeing where he’ll crack first. Not because it’s fun — though it is — but because I need to know how big a problem he could become.
I’ve seen what happens when someone gets sloppy.
I take another long drag and let a memory I don’t usually touch surface.
There was a guy, years ago. Before I learned how to keep my own thoughts hidden enough not to attract attention.
We weren’t close — I’m not close with anyone if I can help it — but I knew him.
Late twenties, decent shot, good at cards, laughed too loud. Had a bunk near mine.
Long story short, he got caught.