Chapter Text
The minute Vladimir Putin moved in the 787 house, Blandon Terrace, Barack Obama knew he would be trouble.
Two months ago the previous inhabitant of the three-story to Barack’s left had upped and went ‘visiting some cousin in Madrid - or was that Namur’: to the general relief of the neighbourhood, as he had been presuming and loud when drunk and never tended his front lawn.
For two idle winter months the House Next Door had sat cold and alone, the red For Sale sign sometimes swinging gently in the wind, the only witness to the snows that came and melted away again in preparation for spring. For two idle, monotonous winter months Barack drove to work, drove back home, and made himself dinner with little anticipation of the morrow.
It was a chilly, bright Saturday the day the moving truck came.
Barack was reading the newspaper in an armchair facing the window, counting down the days to his month of custody of his two daughters. It was some minutes past one - he remembered it clearly.
A slow, gradual rumbling made him look up. There, around the corner, Barack could see the head of a large white truck.
Barack’s curiosity stirred. He closed the newspaper and put it on the table beside, and stood and looked out the window.
The truck drew up to the empty house to the left. Its body blocked his view of the houses opposite. Workers dropped out the doors and unlocked the back, setting up a ramp and climbing inside. A car, black and shiny, pulled up behind it. The driver door opened.
A man, young-ish and unsmiling, climbed out. He wore jeans and a tshirt despite the cold weather. His blond hair was cropped short. His exposed arms, muscular and pale, shut the car’s door behind him with a sound that echoed up the street. A flare of wind flapped the shirt against his chest. Barack noted his chest was very sculpted - then pinched himself.
The man strode up to the movers and started talking with one of them. Then, with a motion like a salmon, he hauled himself up into the truck’s back and disappeared. Moments later he resurfaced. The muscled arms were supporting a sofa. The pale-haired man maneuvered it down the ramp, stepped up the driveway, and started backing it in the house. Something made him look up. Barack dived away - but not before he had locked eyes with the man.
Barack leaned against the wall, breathing quickly. His heart fluttered - he pinched himself again. Barack waited a few seconds, until his pulse settled (kind of), and then peeked out slowly - cautiously - once more. The man was gone.
Barack tried to settle himself down again in the armchair. He picked up the newspaper - USA trillions in debt - and flipped to a random page and stared at it. But the paper was rustling in his tremoring fingers, and the little black lines were crossing and uncrossing in front of his eyes.
Barack gave it up as a bad job and poured himself some wine.