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The first time you saw him was in the neighborhood 7-11 in Hawkins, Indiana.
Well, if you’d been honest with yourself, you hadn’t really seen him. You had probably glanced at him for a moment, perhaps brushed past him in the frozen aisle as you searched for an elusive carton of mashed potatoes. (Alexei laughed at this part when you told him all you’d remembered of that encounter. He’d acceded that you had looked quite intense for casual shopping, but he couldn’t really judge— “when in Rome” and all that.)
With the business sector booming in the once-tiny town, seeing people in smart dress wasn’t unusual. Even if the man with the dark curls and consternated face’s suit did seem a bit off, you figured it could’ve just been from another state. There were, after all, forty-nine others outside of Indiana— you were sure not every manufacturer made their suits like in Hawkins.
In retrospect, you were uncertain what he was shopping for at the time of that first encounter. Knowing him now, it was probably a Slurpee, but who knew what those smarmy Russians let him have (hell, you’d nearly cried when you saw the look of utter confusion on Alexei’s face when you’d introduced him to Pop-Tarts).
The second time the two of you brushed, you saw him in the cereal aisle. You really hadn’t meant to walk up to him— personal space and all, but you couldn’t fathom to yourself why a grown man was apparently debating over two boxes of cereal as if someone’s life depended on them.
You glanced at his options. “Cinnamon Toast Crunch is pretty good.” The words blurted out of your mouth.
His eyes— dark brown, you noticed— snapped up towards you, wary, as if he hadn't noticed you there. His brow furrowed in further silent concentration and you felt a twinge of embarrassment and concern.
You tapped the box in his left hand gently, “this one.”
Understanding mellowed his face and he nodded, placing the other box down obediently. You quirked your eyebrow as he turned away. As he began to walk away, you quickly contemplated your options and, really, it was no competition— tail the man who doesn’t know the obvious difference of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Weetabix, or finish boring grocery shopping?
On the way to following the curly-haired stranger, you grabbed the last item on your list and stepped into place behind him in the check-out line. You eyed his back and wondered if he noticed—
Oh shit. He turned around to face you with an unusually grim expression on his face (though from what you had seen so far that seemed to be a norm). His bit his lip and clumsily muttered a word.
You leaned forward, “pardon?”
“Alexei.” He repeated in a strained sort of tone. Your eyebrow raised again— it sounded . . . foreign. A name? It would certainly explain the ignorance of cereals.
Unsure of why this random stranger, Alexei, had told you this, you felt obliged to reciprocate this queue-interim heart-to-heart.
A strangely happy sort of smile (grimace? Could that be considered a smile?) spread on Alexei’s face and he repeated your name. Considering the pretty dry diversity in Hawkins (nay, Indiana), you were surprised how pleasant you found your name sounded in the roughened accent. You found yourself giving a small grin in exchange.
The clearly underpaid, tired cash registrar cleared her throat at Alexei, turning an unimpressed expression at his sheepish delivery of his assortment of cereal, razors, a pair of socks, and an unusually crisply folded bundle of bills. Alexei made a placating smile (somehow different from the one he had just given you) and you noticed neither side offered up conversation as the girl rang up his order.
You spent so long staring aimlessly at his shoes that you didn’t realize he’d moved away and you became the recipient of an irritated hmph.
You stared out as you saw him leave, unsure of why you kept looking and yet quite sure that you didn’t want to stop. You hadn’t expected him to glance back for a moment and give a small wave.
Apparently, all roads lead back to the cereal aisle. The third time, Alexei had actually run into you. You’d been in deep thought, contemplating the boxes of cereal. Damn yourself for promising your best friend’s kid her favorite cereal for her birthday breakfast, because apparently that was something important to children and you were really, really bad at saying no.
Except, your mind had the memory of a goldfish and you could not, for the life of you, remember the brand. You’d mentally scoffed at the idea of actually writing down the kid’s requested dish, figuring it would be simple, but now you were faced with trying to remember if it was Boo Berry or Franken Berry that she’d said, and goddammit , this was the stupidest and yet most meaningful thought process you’d had in a while, and if that didn’t say something you didn’t know what did.
“Crunch.” A heavily accented voice startled you from behind and you shoved down the automatic reaction to swiftly elbow the offending person.
You turned around and blinked.
“Alexei?”
He smiled cheerfully. “Crunch,” he repeated, as meaningfully as a monosyllabic word could be. You scanned the shelf for a clue and then your eyes landed on the familiar box.
“Oh. Cinnamon Toast Crunch?”
Alexei’s face lit up in recognition, nodding enthusiastically and immediately proceeding to utterly butcher it. “Ceenamon tost cronch.”
You squinted at his face, perplexed. “You’re not from around here, are you? Like, really not from around here.” God, you sounded like a broken record of a Western. But . . . where had you heard that accent before? The soft burrs of Alexei’s accent sounded familiar and almost . . . comforting.
An idea struck you. You grabbed the box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch (Nona was just going to have to deal if she didn’t approve of your choice) and began walking down the aisle, gesturing for Alexei to follow you.
Thankfully, the store you’d dashed to in a pre-birthday haze had a small magazine section and you found the book you were looking for: atlas.
The book made an audible thud as you placed it on a counter. You flipped through the pages, searching for the United States. Locating Indiana was a few page flips away and you found the little dot indicating Hawkins. You looked up at Alexei, hoping he got the message. You were from Hawkins, born and raised, and Alexei . . . ?
As you emphatically gestured to the page, Alexei nodded and smiled.
And proceeded to do nothing.
You internally groaned— of course your miserable ability at charades was going to bite you in the ass because apparently a college education wasn’t the solution to all of life’s problems.
“This place is Hawkins,” you waved around, maintaining eye-contact with the man who looked just as pleasantly unaware as the first time you had showed him the book. You sighed, okay— different approach.
You pointed to yourself, saying your name. Recognition flickered in Alexei’s eyes. “Hawkins.” You pointed at him, “Alexei,” and eyed the atlas meaningfully.
When his eyes looked away from you and he began scanning the store, you were just about to give up, Cinnamon Toast Crunch in-arm. Then Alexei took a surprisingly shaky breath and leaned towards the book, flipping through the pages, seemingly at random.
You watched his fingers make the slightest quiver as they rested on a page. They moved away quickly, as if burned, and Alexei refused to meet your eyes.
Oh.
Oh shit.
That was a very large print map of the Soviet Union, also known as the people America was contemplating blowing off the face of the earth. You slowly looked up to meet Alexei’s dark eyes, his jaw tensed as he hesitantly met them. How could someone look so sad and yet be able to smile and say the goofiest shit like ceenamon tost cronch ?
A sinking feeling settled in your gut as your brain began to make the connection that any Russian in middle-of-nowhere Hawkins , Indiana who couldn't speak a word of English wasn’t there for simple sight-seeing.
There were so many things that you wanted to say, to ask, but one worry took over your mind. “Are you okay?”
You knew he couldn’t understand you. You knew it was irrational to think that any sort of meaning could be conveyed through your language barrier— hell , your very countries were trying to subtly rip each other apart! But there was a sad sort of smile in Alexei’s eyes when he wordlessly closed the atlas. An unspoken agreement, perhaps, was made.
He wasn’t afraid of you, the power you now held over him. As for you, maybe you should’ve been warier of this Soviet agent (somewhere, in the aisles of various American convenience stores, surrounded by towers of cereal, Alexei wormed his way firmly into your mind’s aisle of affection).
The fourth time you saw him in a convenience store had, ironically, also been in a 7-11 (okay, not entirely ironic, considering that there were a grand total of three some convenience stores in Hawkins). Except there had been no time for small talk as you made brief eye contact with Alexei, then very brief contact with the fact that— Jesus — his hands were cuffed, and that the people that were with him did not look like they needed cereal advice. Or the man— you ( double Jesus) recognized as Chief Hopper— who definitely did not look like he wanted any friendly discourse— though, he had never really looked the most upbeat cop anyway. The woman with them seemed willing to negotiate about cereals.
Trying to avoid eye-contact with Alexei’s oddball entourage, you made your way to the Slurpee machine, contemplating if you were willing to blow a couple of cents on a, truthfully, average lump of ice and syrup.
A presence sidled beside you and you glanced up at Alexei, apparently free of his chaperones but not of his handcuffs. You offered a small smile, “privet .”
You’d picked up a small, English-Russian dictionary after you’d discovered Alexei’s kind-of-obvious secret (because how many people popped into Hawkins with a name like that and not actually be from the USSR? You really should have been able to figure it out sooner. The answer, you realized, was zero) and had been working through piecing together brief phrases during your lunches. You hadn’t made it far enough to decipher any sort of explanation the man would be able to give you, so you kept it simple.
You definitely hadn’t expected the smile that beamed back at you— not wide open, but a hint of teeth and almost-happiness. “Privetik.”
After realizing that grappling with the machine with bound hands wasn’t going to be productive within the next hour, Alexei gave you an embarrassed head tilt towards the cups. You grabbed one and gestured to the selections, feeling a sort of bubbly warmth at the concentration he took to deciphering the colorful labels and flavors. Finally, he decided, tapping the cherry option.
You tried to convince yourself that it was just the chill of the metal lever that made your fingers feel electric when you handed the drink to him.
You also tried to convince yourself that everything was fine as Alexei gave you an overjoyed beam-of-sunshine sort of smile, but no— no amount of mental repetitions was going to change the fact that you had no fucking clue what was going on. What the hell were they doing at some obscure 7-11 in the middle of nowhere? Sure, Hawkins was a small town, but generally, the whole “meet your neighbor unexpectedly” happened within a twenty-mile radius of the town. Not in goddamn Indiana . And why the fuck was your benevolent, kinda-friend, Russian man in cuffs? (excluding the obvious reason.)
You'd figured after two meetings, quite spaced out, with him that Alexei had had some sort of working camouflage, considering that America was in the middle of a nuclear arms race with the USSR and you were pretty sure Alexei didn’t speak a lick of the American mother tongue. Well, luck had to run out eventually.
So here he was, in all his handcuffed glory (a Slurpee clutched between his hands). You spent a moment looking at him, lost in the rabbit hole of what even are Soviets? After all the news reports and crackling radio warnings of “preparing for bomb drills”, etc. you’d quite the different thought process of what a Russian actually looked like. Probably angry, brawny men with sandpaper growls and eternally wearing velvety military uniforms.
The two of you stared at each other for a moment. For a moment, it was still— the ambiance of the 7-11 washing over you two. Soft angles and quiet smiles— no, Alexei wasn’t like what you expected a Soviet to be like at all.
Then the world erupted into chaos.
A voice thundered, “Smirnoff!”
Your head snapped to the offender and you barely had time to move before Chief Hopper stormed up and grabbed Alexei’s arm. You bit down a shout of indignation when his drink was almost knocked out of his hands.
Alexei didn’t seem to protest outside of irritation from being pushed, and he looked back at you, an oddly blank expression on his face. It was . . . resigned? No, guilty. The childlike wonder of the Slurpee seemed to fade away and you remembered the whole Russian enemy part. You almost felt like you’d been the one eating the Slurpee, with the chunk of ice you felt in your gut. You watched Alexei get pushed into a luminous yellow convertible.
The glass door slammed shut, leaving you with the tiny bronze bell ringing in your ears. As you saw the group leap in the car (leaving an amusingly disgruntled man behind), you felt as though you had briefly stared into a different man altogether.
The one who sat, hunched in a stolen convertible wasn't the Alexei who bought cereal with you. He was sadder, stiffer— silent in his voice and movement. The smile that had appeared on his face when he drank the Slurpee was a hollow crack.
The icy feeling in your stomach had melted into a sort of bottomless-pit sensation. You couldn’t help but wonder what actually happened to captured Soviets behind all the star-spangled cheer of American vengeance.
Thankfully, you only had to wait a day to see Alexei again (the shortest gap between meetings yet). What far outweighed any good in that statement was that he was literally soaking your jacket with his blood.
You’d attended the 4th of July celebrations partly on a whim, partly to repay a grave debt you’d made to an eight-year-old by bringing one of the unapproved cereals to her birthday party. So you’d hadn’t expected much for the night: maneuver around unpleasant (but not horrible) lines, purchase tickets as the walking wallet you were, make sure Nona didn’t overdose on sugar— the usual things.
You hadn’t thought anything of an eccentric man running through the crowd with a tank top— there were drinks at the celebration and it was expected that people would get a little wild.
What you hadn’t expected was that the turn to the portable restrooms was not the turn to the portable restrooms.
You recognized the mass of curls immediately, damp with sweat though they were.
“Alexei!” You practically dove to your knees, getting a better look at his face, twisted with pain. You watched his labored breaths and saw the compress that was already slipping away to reveal . . . shit. Even in the dark, that looked like too much— pumping out of his chest with every heartbeat.
“Alexei— oh my god— Alexei.”
He muttered something incoherently.
Your mind felt a little dizzy— you weren’t sure if it was from the blood, or the fact that Alexei was just lying there, and holy shit you didn’t know what you were doing and you wondered if you were panicking— yes, definitely fucking panicking.
Okay, okay, what did they always say to do in those strange emergency videos that occasionally showed on the TV? Call 911 – well shit, in a field of temporary, hallucinogenic, glowing attractions, you didn’t have access to a telephone.
Plan B. Where did emergency services usually take patients? Hospital . Okay, okay, cool— right. You could totally function as an emergency responder— to your brain junked up on adrenaline, this was evidently genius.
“Okay, Alexei, I need you to stay with me, right? I’m going to move you, okay? This is going to hurt, but I’m going to get you to the hospital, alright? They’re going to help you there.” You had to shout for Alexei to hear you over the fair’s music, and between feeling your hands slick with his blood and trying to lift him while maintaining pressure on the wound, you were pretty sure you were just babbling at this point. Alexei began mumbling something but broke off with a hiss as you managed to hoist him up. You tried to ignore the warmth soaking into your shirt.
“Okay, okay— we’ve got this. Oh, shit , sorry about your leg there— but hey, at least it’s not another gunshot, right?” You laughed to yourself (was he even conscious at this point?), borderline ditzy with relief at having reached your car. It was an old station wagon, but she’d carried you through thick and thin and dammit you weren’t planning on having anyone bleed out in your car.
You reversed out of the stall and floored the gas. You kept one hand on Alexei’s chest, the other on the wheel, acutely aware of each labored breath he made. Whether his shirt was soaked with sweat or blood, you couldn’t tell in the dim. You swallowed nervously, painfully aware of the time ticking away— there had been no time to fiddle with the car and you drove to the sound of both of your breathings.
You liked to think of your entrance to the hospital as a force of nature— you storming in, Alexei in arms, demanding he be treated at once. Perhaps that’s what you’d tell Alexei (you hadn’t decided yet).
In reality, needless to say, you had never expected your fourth to be spent half-running half-limping into a deserted hospital with a full-grown Russian man slightly dragging behind you (okay, you may have dropped Alexei a few times, but, in your defense, it was incredibly difficult to keep a hand on his chest and carry him).
As soon as the woman at the front desk saw you, her back straightened and she stopped twirling the phone cord in her hands. “Honey, I’m gonna have to call you back,” she said hurriedly, slamming the receiver down. She eyed you up and down, “why the hell didn’t you call 911?”
The appearance of authority in the form of a 5’3” spectacled woman was apparently the final straw for your psyche. You felt the hot, burning sensation of tears and managed to choke out, “save him. Please.”
The receptionist’s eyes softened. She looked like she was about to say something when the doors slammed open and a nurse marched out with a gurney in tow. You tried not to sound too pitiful when you released Alexei’s stiff form, reassuring yourself with his slightly shifting expression of agony that he was still alive.
The nurse spared a look at you and her eyes bore holes into your forehead. “Stay here until we come out. We’ll need you for the report and information.”
“Wait,” you cursed the stutter that appeared in your voice. “He’ll be . . . okay?”
She made the same expression as the receptionist. “We’ll see.” she finally said curtly, already heading for the back door.
With the receding clicks of her heels went a part of your heart. You tried to ignore the fact that the receptionist could still clearly see you as you sank into one of the waiting room’s chairs and bit down a scream on your shirt sleeve. You smelled like blood.
The fifth time you met in a store was, in fact, not in a store, but you had just been at the vending machine in the waiting room buying a Mars bar, so you considered it was basically the same thing. You’d just finished unwrapping the damn thing when a different nurse came out and smiled softly, “he’s stabilized and woken up, if you’d like to see him.”
You had shoved the rest of the bar in your mouth, nodding and trying not to hop as you hurried behind her. It’d been a day or so of anxious waiting, throughout which you’d managed to go home and clean up, bringing a book or two back for the hospital waiting room. They’d said that it was likely he would pull through and it had been “rather fortunate” that you’d been there when you had. You evaded actually saying who you were, but you supposed the receptionist had made some assumptions considering how you’d lurked the waiting room anxiously (and hey, you weren’t complaining).
When the nurse opened up the door, she nodded curtly, “only ten minutes or so. He needs to rest after the operation.”
It felt almost like a dream.
You’d already seen him only so often and seeing him hooked up as if he was some car being repaired was disorienting. You resisted the urge to touch his face and feel that he was real. His brown eyes shone with recognition, looking almost hazy compared to the stark white of the room. His smile turned into a grimace and he raised his hand slightly.
You took the proffered hand gently, smiling shakily.
They had certainly cleaned him up— his old clothes were nowhere in sight, and he looked almost comical in the hospital gown, curly locks haphazardly flopping. Unconsciously, you reached forward and brushed them out of his eyes. His eyes snapped up and you snatched you arm back as if burned.
“Shit, sorry. Prostite .” You hurried mumbled, taking your other hand out of where it had been relaxedly holding his. You didn’t expect the sudden frown from Alexei.
“Good.”
You weren’t quite sure what he’d said through the accent and hesitated. Alexei’s forehead creased and he looked downward. His hand reached out to take yours back, coyly placing it on his head. “Good.” He repeated insistently.
You suddenly felt flushed despite the central cooling. “Oh. ” You didn’t move and he hesitated as well.
After a moment, you moved your hand from his head but held onto his. You stared at your interlocked fingers. “I . . . I’m glad that you’re good.” You glanced upward, wondering if he’d been able to understand. He certainly looked better— though anything was an improvement from bleeding out.
You both stayed quiet afterward, taking solace in the quiet thrum of the hospital and machinery. How fascinating, you thought, how technology seemed to be the subject of so much scrutiny in movies and yet here it was . . . saving someone you cared deeply about. You wondered if part of the wires and gizmos on the interface by Alexei were also used in bombs.
Out of some odd sense of chivalry, he began to look almost uncomfortable and awkwardly patted the sheets beside him. You suppose he felt bad about you standing? ( Not like he was the one who got shot or anything, you thought wryly.)
Checking to see if his mind changed, you gingerly sat down on the edge of the cot. No way were you jostling his stitches or whatever the doctors had done. You turned to look at him, “good?”
His lifted his arm slightly and pulled you back so abruptly that your back hit the pillow beside him (you made a mortifying squeaking noise at impact). You were surprised that his heart rate monitor couldn’t pick up the thunder pounding in your chest. An incredibly smug expression took over Alexei’s face.
“Good.”
You turned to face him to protest and promptly get out (because the nurse was going to be back any moment and what would she think?), when you felt soft lips on yours. You’re pretty sure you saw stars.
Alexei pulled back gently and finally looked a little sheepish. “Sorry.”
You felt a little tingly and warm— a different sort of feeling than the post-Slurpee-exchange sensation. It was different but pleasant. Good.
“No, no. It was . . . good,” you felt yourself burn up at the attempt to simplify your language to coherence. You made eye contact and tried to convey the immense fondness you felt for this dorky Russian guy you met in the cereal aisle. “Good. ”
A slight wave of relief seemed to take over him and he smiled back. Then, a sort of concentration came over his face. He leaned in and you obliged, tangling your fingers in his soft hair.
Alexei abruptly broke off the kiss and you felt a pit immediately open in your stomach. Oh, of course. “What?” you asked, a bit brokenly.
He nodded to himself in confirmation and grinned back at you, unaware of your distress. “Good.”
You stared blankly.
He winked cheekily. “Shokolad .”