Work Text:
Pripyat, September 1986
Legasov clears his throat a couple of times, trying to remember how many times he has already done it, that day.
At this point, the slightest ache or a more accentuated tiredness than usual are enough to put him in alarm. After all, it’s inevitable.
He looks around, squeezing his eyes, because without glasses he doesn't see much.
Dust, a lot of it, dances in the air, lit by the late afternoon sun: now the Polissya hotel hosts the soldiers and the other men working at the damaged reactor, but the civilian staff of the hotel has been removed for months, and the cleaning is not a priority for sure.
If he closes his eyes, Valery can see the effects that neglect will have on that place: when they will leave, at the end of the mission, nobody will be left to fight the ruin. Duvets will be eaten by insects (if they survive the radiations), moisture will attack the walls and the wallpaper, gravity will make the ceilings and chandeliers fall, hailstones will break the windows, and eventually the structure itself will collapse, until nothing else remains but dust.
It's fucking depressing.
He stretches his left arm toward the bedside table, looking for his cigarettes. His hand hits Boris’ empty glass and the bottle of vodka, before closing around the package.
They both have bad habits, and lately they are overindulging in them, but he doesn’t care that much: it won't be smoke and alcohol to put them in a grave.
He exhales a heavy sigh: the more time passes, the more those thoughts creep into his mind, even when he doesn't want to think about it, like now.
Boris, lying next to him, moves slightly, and his bare arm touches his.
A single, warm point of contact, from the shoulders to the back of the fingers.
Valery's breathing becomes lighter, and the thoughts about death and ruin disappear from his mind.
If someone, months ago, had told him what would have happened between them, he would have laughed at him, asking if he was drunk.
Not because Boris is a man (Valery has long come to terms with his inclinations, even if, for obvious reasons, he never lingered on them), but because the two of them are extremely different, and at first they fought about everything.
They still do it every once in a while, but without any animosity; it's just to keep up a facade in front of Tarakanov, the military, and the KGB agents.
The truth is that, without Boris by his side, he would have already given up, ending up at the Serbsky Institute due to a nervous breakdown, because the mission is not just about securing the reactor; there are a thousand other aspects: bureaucracy, politics, army, that he would never be able to handle alone, and that would drive him crazy.
Boris takes care of these troubles for him, in silence; he often stays to work and make phone calls until late, locked in the container, without telling him anything, just to lift that weight off his shoulders.
He moves his fingers, caressing Boris’ palm.
He should thank him more often, using words, but the two of them are not like that: he is clumsy and awkward, Boris is as gruff as a bear, and they are two middle-aged men, disenchanted and at the end of their lives.
"What?" Boris's voice resonates loud and clear in the still air of the afternoon.
Boris never asks questions: he demands to know, and he doesn’t stop until he has got answers, whether it is to get new gears from Moscow, or it is about the two of them.
Valery turns his head to look at him.
"I was thinking about the first impression I had of you."
Boris grunts, as he does every time he knows he's going to hear something he won't like.
"You asked for it," Valery observes, smiling slightly.
"Continue."
"It's impossible, I will never get along with a man like that, this I thought at the end of our first phone call."
"Impudent," Boris mumbles.
"Come on, you didn't even let me talk, and you dismissed all my worries."
"Your role in the commission wasn’t to challenge me, and besides that stupid ass of Bryukhanov reported that the incident was under control."
"I know."
The grip of Valery's fingers on his hand becomes firmer.
"Is there more? What else did you think of me?"
"A dull bureaucrat: the worst thing that could happen to me in this emergency, our first meeting at the Kremlin did nothing but reinforce my first impression. He isn’t interested in the truth, but only in a version of events that is not too annoying for Moscow. "
Silence falls between them and Valery wonders if he has said too much. Boris has learned to accept many truths, especially if he is the one to say them, but Valery doesn’t understand well where the line is.
"But," he hastens to add, "you are not like that, I discovered it almost immediately. You didn't believe to Bryukhanov and Fomin's version of the incident, and you always supported my decisions on how to put a patch on this catastrophe. I'm happy my first impression of you was wrong, Borja."
Boris twists his mouth in a grimace: "There is little room for happiness in this situation."
"I know, but... ab-about... you know, about this... uh... yes, I’m happy."
"This," Boris barks a laugh, "months have passed and you still call it this. You're incredible."
Boris seems really amused by his embarrassment.
"I thought you wanted to keep a low profile," Valery objects, but he knows he's blushing.
"We are alone, Valera."
To tell the truth, Valery has given a name to what there is between them in his head, but he doesn’t dare to say it out loud. It’s a mechanism of self-defense: one doesn’t mention what is ephemeral and it’s doomed to end soon; to say it aloud would make it more real, and infinitely more painful when it’s gone.
Boris seems to understand it too, because he doesn’t insist.
"And you?" Valery asks, "what was the first impression you had of me?"
They still have time: the last man that comrade Charkov sent to check them leaves the hotel at the same time every day to report to Moscow. The spies change often and they never stay too long: the KGB wants to be discrete about the incident, but now all the agents know what the situation is at the power plant, and a good salary is certainly not worth a radiation poisoning.
Boris always spots the agents as soon as they set foot in Chernobyl, no matter if they are here at the hotel, or blended among the liquidators: a life in politics, dealing with people like Charkov, has given him a very trained eye.
Valery is not like that, he has no idea who they are until he tells him. He is just that hopeless.
Which brings him back to the former question: what was the first impression he had of Valery?
"I didn't like you."
Valery smiles: "That, I understood: you threatened to throw me off a helicopter."
Boris continues, grumbling: "This professor comes and pours a river of big scientific words on me from the high pedestal of his degree, watching me drown in them. That was what I thought."
"Borja," Valery's face becomes serious, his breath agitated, "I never intended to denigrate you, and if I gave you this impression I’m sor..."
"Valera, I was joking."
"Oh."
Humor is not one of his strengths.
"But above all," Boris continues, speaking slowly, "I thought you were a troublemaker."
Tarakanov and the other men engaged in that mission believe that Valery is a shy and gentle man, virtually harmless, but Boris never believed it, since the moment when Valery slammed his palms on the table in front of the general secretary of the party and explained to everyone, in clear and shocking terms, what had happened at Chernobyl.
Valery is neither insolent nor rebellious and his personal file is spotless, but he is a honest man, he has the sense of what is right and what is wrong, a sense of justice that overrides political and diplomatic reasons, and he isn’t willing to bow to them.
That's why Boris knows that Valery is a troublemaker: to him, to himself, to the both of them. Valery will not accept a compromise that doesn’t bring justice to the dead and endangers the living.
The problem is that, beyond the committee, in Moscow they have already decided how the facts have unfolded, and what will be the truth to offer to the world; they just want Valery to support their version without making any noise, but Boris already knows that it will never happen.
Valery will be torn to pieces by the party inner circle, will face isolation, aversion, will accept to be erased from history, but will not give up.
Boris doesn't know to what extent he can protect him, working in the shadows, unbeknownst to Valery himself, he doesn't know how much of his power he can give up to reach a compromise with Valery’s enemies, and this is one of the many torments that keeps him awake at night.
So yes, Valery is a troublemaker for sure, not only because he scares him to death every time he speaks boldly at committee meetings, ignoring their glare, but also because he brings troubles to his poor heart.
At his age, Boris envisaged a quiet retirement, not to meet an awkward man who wears his heart on his sleeve.
And yet it happened.
Much more has happened between them. They didn’t expect it, and in a sense it caught them by surprise, but now Boris wouldn’t change anything, because in that immense tragedy that will soon claim their lives, at least they has this, as Valery calls it.
"Do you still think so? That I’m a troublemaker, I mean."
"Obviously," Boris replies, brusquely.
"Now... you are kidding, right?"
"Partly. But I didn't say it was bad. Indeed..." Boris' voice becomes unusually low, as if he were confessing a secret, "I'm happy that my first impression of you was right, Valera."
Boris fears that perhaps his words are too cryptic for him, but after a moment a spark of understanding lights up his blue eyes, and Valery nods slowly.
Boris raises his arm and rubs Valery’s cheek in a gesture of rough affection that has become the norm for them.
Valery's skin is scarred by acne, and Boris’ hands are wrinkled and rough, but together they create a bizarre and unexpected harmony.
"We have to get up," he urges, "it's almost time for dinner."
Valery closes his eyes, savoring the last moment of that caress, and then he is ready to go.