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The first time Mitya laid eyes on Major Valeriy, the world did not tilt on its axis or swell with orchestral strings. It was simply a Tuesday in Snezhnograd, the kind of gray morning that smelled of cold metal, ink, and the faint metallic tang of Fatui machinery humming somewhere deep beneath the floors of the administrative wing.
Mitya sat at his workstation, a half-finished book open in front of him. A Fatui soldier—young, earnest, and already looking like he regretted volunteering for this particular duty—stood stiffly nearby.
“A bodyguard?” Mitya said, not bothering to keep the surprise out of his voice. “That’s going a bit overboard. I’m fully capable of defending myself.”
The soldier opened his mouth. Whatever polite deflection he had prepared never left it. His spine snapped straight so abruptly that Mitya heard the soft click of his heels coming together.
“Ah, Major Valeriy!”
Mitya turned.
The man standing in the doorway was taller than most of the officers who drifted through the administrative floors. Dark hair, uniform pressed with the kind of severity that suggested the fabric itself was afraid to wrinkle. His face was all clean lines and quiet control, bright eyes the color of freshly cut amethyst. Handsome in the way a blade is handsome: functional, precise, and not particularly interested in being admired.
Mitya’s first coherent thought was, Oh, he’s handsome.
His second was, This is going to be a problem.
Valeriy stepped into the room without a word of greeting. He gave the young soldier a single nod—dismissal enough—and the boy fled with visible relief. Then those eyes settled on Mitya.
“Dmitry,” Valeriy said. His voice was low, even, the kind that didn’t need volume to carry. “I’ve been assigned as your protective detail until further notice.”
Mitya leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. “Mitya is fine. And I already told your friend here I don’t need one.”
“Noted.” Valeriy’s gaze flicked once over the messy desk, the open book, the half-empty cup of tea gone cold hours ago. “I’ll be stationed at the secondary desk by the window. Try not to leave the building without informing me.”
“That’s it? No speech about duty and honor and the importance of my continued survival to the cause?”
“Would it change your mind?”
Mitya considered lying, then decided against it. “No.”
“Then no speech.” Valeriy moved to the secondary desk, set down a slim leather folder, and sat. He opened the folder and began reading as though Mitya had already ceased to exist.
Mitya stared at the back of his head for a full thirty seconds before turning back to his own work, muttering under his breath, “Charming.”
He told himself the flutter in his chest was irritation.
It was not entirely irritation.
The first week passed in a strange, quiet rhythm.
Valeriy arrived each morning at precisely the same minute, nodded once in greeting, and took his place at the secondary desk. He read reports. He answered the occasional sealed message that arrived by runner. He watched the door and the windows with the same unhurried attention one might give a chessboard. He almost never spoke unless spoken to.
Mitya, who had never met a silence he didn’t feel obligated to fill, found this both infuriating and oddly restful.
On the third day he tried small talk.
“Sooo,” he dragged the word out, spinning a pen between his fingers. “Do you have any hobbies?”
Valeriy did not look up from the page in front of him. “If you consider work as a hobby, then yes.”
Not a fan of small talk, I see. Mitya hummed, leaning his chin on one hand. “That’s boring. Surely you like better things than that.”
Valeriy’s pen paused for half a second. Then he resumed writing. The silence stretched until Mitya felt it pressing against his ribs.
Eventually Valeriy checked the watch on his wrist, closed the folder, and stood. “Let’s get lunch.”
It was not a suggestion.
Mitya blinked, then smiled despite himself. “Is that an order?”
“It’s twelve-seventeen. You haven’t eaten since breakfast, and that was only tea and a piece of black bread you abandoned halfway through. You’ll be useless by mid-afternoon if you don’t eat.”
Mitya’s smile widened. “You noticed what I ate?”
Valeriy’s expression did not change. “It’s my job to notice.”
They walked to the canteen. Mitya talked along the way—about the way the heating ducts in the east wing made a sound like a dying accordion every time the wind shifted, about a rumor that one of the junior clerks had been caught trying to smuggle contraband novels past the censors. Valeriy listened without comment, but he did not tell Mitya to be quiet. When they reached the serving line he ordered for both of them without asking: thick potato soup, black bread, and a small portion of pickled vegetables. Mitya raised an eyebrow but accepted the tray.
They ate at a corner table. Valeriy finished first and simply sat, posture perfect, eyes moving occasionally over the room. Mitya found himself slowing down just to prolong the strange, companionable quiet.
When they returned to the office, Mitya felt—against all reason—that the day had become slightly less gray.
Trust did not arrive in a single dramatic moment. It accumulated in small, almost invisible deposits.
Whenever someone approached Mitya’s desk—clerks with questions, officers with new orders, the occasional high-ranking visitor who wanted a word—Valeriy shifted. Not aggressively. Just enough that there was always a clear, measurable distance between Mitya and whoever stood in front of him. Enough that Mitya never felt crowded. Enough that the nervous petitioners kept their voices lower and their gestures smaller.
When Mitya lost track of time in conversation, Valeriy would appear at his shoulder with a quiet “We have a meeting in twelve minutes” or simply a hand resting briefly at the small of his back to guide him back towards the staircase. The first few times Mitya bristled. By the second week he had stopped bristling. By the third he had begun to wait for the touch without realizing it.
Nine times out of ten, Mitya was grateful.
The tenth time was always the theater.
Korolevskiy Theater sat away from the main city, a relic of pre-Fatui grandeur that had somehow survived the years of ice and ideology. Its marble columns were stained by soot and salt, its gilded interior dulled, but the stage still glowed under light, and the Prima Ballerina Odette still danced as though the world outside the theater walls did not exist.
Mitya had loved it since he was a boy. He had loved it through the long winters of his apprenticeship, through the endless days of research. On the rare afternoons when the work slowed enough that he could slip away, he went.
The first time Mitya tried to leave for a matinee, Valeriy intercepted him at the door with a look that could have frozen a river.
“Work hours,” he said.
“I’ll be back before the evening briefings.”
“No.”
Mitya argued. He pleaded. He tried charm, sarcasm, even a half-serious threat to file a formal complaint about overreach. Valeriy remained unmoved. In the end Mitya was walked firmly back to his desk and given a stack of correspondence that needed answering before nightfall.
He went the next week anyway, slipping out through a side entrance while Valeriy was briefly occupied with a runner. He made it all the way to the theater steps before a gloved hand closed around his upper arm.
Valeriy’s voice was quiet and absolutely final. “If you insist on putting yourself at risk for a ballet, at least do me the courtesy of informing me first so I can arrange proper coverage.”
Mitya looked up at him, breathless from the short chase, and felt something complicated twist in his chest. “You followed me.”
“I noticed you were gone within four minutes. I followed the most likely path.”
“That’s... impressive. And annoying.”
Valeriy’s mouth twitched—almost a smile. “Return to the office. Now.”
Mitya went. But that night, long after the building had emptied, he sat at his desk and thought about the precise way Valeriy’s hand had closed around his arm: firm, controlled, never bruising. Protective rather than punitive. He thought about it longer than he should have.
The invitation came on a Thursday that had already gone sideways twice before noon.
A shipment of Kresnik Kristall had been delayed by weather. A junior scientist had misfiled an entire report. Mitya’s head ached from the effort of untangling both messes. Valeriy had spent the morning at the secondary desk, reading in silence, occasionally rising to intercept visitors before they could reach Mitya’s side.
By mid-afternoon the worst of it had settled. Mitya leaned back, rubbed his eyes, and looked across the room.
Valeriy was watching him. Not the door. Not the window. Him.
Mitya felt the weight of that attention settle somewhere behind his sternum.
“Sarge,” he said, deliberately using the informal rank the lower ranks sometimes muttered when they thought Valeriy couldn’t hear. “Wanna head to the theater with me?”
Valeriy’s expression said everything: Now? Really? The slight narrowing of the eyes, the almost imperceptible tightening at the corner of the mouth. Disbelief, mild exasperation, and underneath it something that might have been curiosity.
But the answer, when it came, was clear.
“Sure.”
Mitya blinked. “Really?”
“You asked. I answered.” Valeriy closed his folder and stood. “If we’re going, we leave in ten minutes. I’ll arrange for coverage of the office until we return.”
Mitya scrambled to gather his coat, suddenly aware of how his pulse had picked up. “You’re not going to lecture me about work hours?”
“I am going to ensure you don’t get yourself into difficulty while chasing a ballerina across a stage. There is a difference.”
They left through the main doors together. The air outside was sharp with the promise of more snow.
Korolevskiy Theater was already half full when they arrived. Valeriy purchased two tickets in the upper circle without comment, then led the way up the worn marble stairs with the same quiet efficiency he applied to everything else. Their seats were good—slightly off-center, with a clear view of the stage and an easy line of retreat to the exit. Mitya suspected that last detail was not accidental.
The house lights dimmed. The overture began.
Mitya had seen this particular production four times already that season. He still felt the same familiar ache in his chest when the curtain rose, when Odette first appeared in a spill of white light, when the music lifted and the entire company moved as though the air itself had become water.
He stole a glance at Valeriy.
The major sat perfectly still, eyes on the stage, hands resting loosely on his thighs. His expression gave nothing away. But he did not look bored. He looked... attentive.
Halfway through the second act, the dizziness began.
It came on slowly at first—a soft swimming sensation behind the eyes, a heaviness in the limbs. Mitya connected it to the late nights, the skipped meals, the constant low-grade tension of the week. He blinked hard, tried to focus on Odette’s final solo of the act. The stage blurred. The music seemed to stretch and warp.
He shifted in his seat. Valeriy’s shoulder was solid and warm against his own.
Mitya’s head tipped sideways before he could stop it.
He registered the faint scent of clean wool, the steady rise and fall of Valeriy’s breathing. Somewhere far away the applause began for intermission. He felt, dimly, the careful way Valeriy adjusted so that Mitya’s head rested more securely against him. A gloved hand settled lightly against the back of Mitya’s neck, steadying him.
Mitya slept through the rest of the performance.
He woke to the sound of the final applause and the soft scrape of seats as the audience began to rise. His cheek was pressed against Valeriy’s shoulder. One of Valeriy’s hands still rested at the nape of his neck, thumb moving in a slow, almost unconscious circle.
Mitya lifted his head carefully. “How long...?”
“Since the second act.” Valeriy’s voice was quiet. “You didn’t stir when the lights came up for intermission. I judged it safer to let you rest.”
Heat flooded Mitya’s face. “Sorry. That was—”
“Unnecessary apology.” Valeriy stood, offering a hand. Mitya took it. The grip was firm, steadying. “You’re exhausted. We’ve both known it for days. The theater was a good place for you to finally stop moving.”
They walked back through the thinning crowd in silence. Snow had begun to fall in soft, heavy flakes. The streetlights cast long blue shadows across the ice.
Halfway to the administrative wing, Mitya spoke again, voice low. “You stayed. You could have woken me and taken me back.”
“You asked me to come with you,” Valeriy said simply. “I did.”
Something in Mitya’s chest loosened. He looked sideways at the man walking beside him—the straight posture, the careful scan of the street, the faint crease between his brows that never quite smoothed away.
“Thank you,” Mitya said.
Valeriy glanced at him. For the first time since they had met, those dark eyes held something warmer than professional assessment. “You’re welcome, Mitya.”
The use of the familiar name landed softly, like the first real snow of the season.
In the weeks that followed, the shape of their days shifted.
Valeriy still arrived at the same precise minute each morning. He still occupied the secondary desk and still watched the doors and windows with the same unhurried vigilance. But the silences between them grew less absolute. Sometimes, when the afternoon light slanted through the high windows in long gold bars, Valeriy would set aside his reports and listen while Mitya talked.
Sometimes Valeriy answered.
He spoke of a childhood spent moving between towns, of learning to read weather in the way the wind shifted across the tundra, of the particular satisfaction of a well-maintained rifle and a clean line of sight. He never spoke of the assignments that had earned him the rank of major so young. Mitya did not ask. The silence around those years felt intentional, and Mitya was learning that some silences were a form of trust in themselves.
Protective habits remained, but they softened at the edges.
When a visiting colonel from the northern command leaned too far into Mitya’s space during a heated discussion about supply routes, Valeriy did not simply create distance. He stepped in, offered a quiet clarification that redirected the colonel’s attention, and then—once the man had left—rested a brief hand on Mitya’s shoulder.
“You handled that well,” he said.
Mitya looked up, surprised. Praise from Valeriy was rarer than clear skies in January. “I almost told him his proposed route would get half the convoy frozen solid before they cleared the first pass.”
“I know. I could see it on your face. You chose the diplomatic version instead. That takes control.”
The words settled warm under Mitya’s ribs. He smiled, small and genuine. “High praise from the man who once told me small talk was a waste of oxygen.”
Valeriy’s mouth did that almost-smile again. “I never said that.”
“You thought it very loudly.”
“Perhaps.”
They went to the theater twice more that month. Once to see the Prima Donna in full glory. Once simply because the week had been long and the snow outside the windows made the office feel smaller than usual. Both times Valeriy purchased the tickets. Both times he chose seats with clear sightlines and easy exits. Both times Mitya fell asleep against his shoulder during the second act, and both times Valeriy let him rest until the final curtain.
On the third visit, as the house lights rose and the audience began to file out, Mitya did not immediately lift his head. He stayed there a moment longer, listening to the steady beat of Valeriy’s heart under the wool of his coat, feeling the careful weight of the hand at the back of his neck.
“You’re going to spoil me,” he murmured.
Valeriy’s thumb moved once in that slow circle. “You’re allowed to be spoiled occasionally. Within reason.”
Mitya laughed softly against his shoulder. “Within reason. Of course.”
They walked home through fresh snow. The city felt quieter than usual, the usual clatter of carts and boots muffled under the white. At the entrance to the administrative wing Valeriy paused.
“You should sleep properly tonight,” he said. “No more staying until the early hours finishing reports that can wait until morning.”
“Is that an order?”
“It’s a recommendation from someone who has to watch you fall asleep in public if you don’t.”
Mitya tilted his head, studying the man in front of him—the amethyst eyes, the controlled posture, the faint flush high on his cheekbones that might have been from the cold or might have been something else.
“Then I’ll try,” he said. “For you.”
Valeriy held his gaze for a long moment. Then he nodded once, short and decisive, and opened the door.
Trust, once accumulated, proved difficult to spend. It only grew.
And somewhere in the long, ordinary rhythm of shared meals and shared silences and the careful, wordless ways they had learned to look out for each other, something that had begun as duty settled into something neither of them had expected and both of them, in their different ways, had come to need.
Mitya no longer wondered when the assignment would end.
He had begun, quietly and without fanfare, to plan for the possibility that it might not.