Chapter Text
Soviet drudged through the mud of the torn-up, former battlefield. Some fading smoke still coiled up from the holes left behind by merciless artillery and grenades.
Reports had told him that the battle had gone in their favour for once. A small bit of relief after the constant pressure Reich had been putting on them with his Blitzkrieg. Soviet relied on his grim confidence and it told him that Reich could not keep this pace forever. He was not France. His lands were vast, his people strong and his winters were nothing like his thin western skin was used to. He would slow and perhaps this was the first proof that he'd begun to falter.
Despite their victory, they'd suffered many losses and he had decided to see for himself. Indeed, corpses covered the meadow that once used to bloom with life big and small. He thought that soon enough, life in the form of flies and maggots would be thriving here again.
Most of the men here wore a grey uniform and yet too many still were clad in his.
A weak, mournful moan echoed across the field and Soviet made his way towards it, circling around his own fallen men and stepping on Reich's, planting muddy boot prints on their torsos and faces. He reached the noisemaker.
It was a Soviet soldier, covered in dirt and blood. His leg right leg had been blown off and he seemingly just barely had managed to wrap his belt tightly around his limb. It may have quelled the bleeding, but it did not stop the flies nor disease. It smelled sour and rotten and Soviet did not have to look close to see the beginnings of gangrene.
"Help me," the man managed weakly as Soviet knelt down next to his head.
"Close your eyes," Soviet commanded brusquely and the man did as he commanded, quivering and letting out an unsteady exhale.
Soviet unsheathed his hunting knife, tilted the man's head up and drew a deep, welling line of red across his neck. He held him as he choked and convulsed, listened to his death rattle, until the soldier finally grew still and collapsed entirely. Only then did Soviet get up, letting him slide back into the mud.
The sky was heavily overcast, as if agreeing with the bitterness in his chest. It hadn't been the first soul he'd put out of their misery and he wondered how many more of his own men Reich would have him kill.
He'd wondered about Reich's motives countless times, about his betrayal, about if anything from before it had been real at all. Perhaps Reich had always played him for a fool.
And I played the part very well, he thought grimly as he pressed on. Not once did I question him. Whenever I sensed doubt, I swept him up in my glorious ideas of the future and he would laugh and give me that damned smile.
Soviet looked around. Was this the great future Reich had seen before his own eyes while Soviet entertained him with his naive, utopian ideals? Maybe all he'd ever wanted was bloodshed and he'd simply waited to drive in the knife and twist it until it would hurt the most.
He already cut me with it before, he thought against his will, a great shame settling on him at the memory. He refused to think about it further, and just then, as he was looking for something to distract him, his eye caught onto movement from the looming forest on the far side of the meadow.
Soviet squinted and stalked closer, until he could make out a tiny, abandoned house nestled into the shade of the trees. He stilled and listened intently. Flies buzzed around him, a breeze carried the scent of a rising storm and crows squawked, excited for the feast. Underneath it all, he could make out the sound of metal hitting stone. Someone was there.
Without hesitation he took the rifle he'd slung over his shoulder firmly into his hands and approached warily, stepping as quietly as his heavy boots and terrain allowed him to. His leg nearly got caught in barbed wire more than once and he cursed in his mind. The closer he got however, the more he realised that whoever was there, didn't pay mind to anyone who might hear him.
Noises of metal clanking together echoed out of the small house, it's cracked walls doing little to insulate the sound. Paper rustled and he could hear a quiet voice mumbling, though it was too faint to make anything out.
Soviet crept into the house, following the noise through the weathered hallway until he reached the opening where a door had rotted away long ago. The person was quiet now and so, Soviet turned to peek into the room, his rifle at the ready.
Inside was a German soldier, hunkered down over a map and scratching his head. His helmet had been tossed to the floor and the rest of his equipment had been haphazardly thrown against an old table. He didn't seem injured but he did seem terribly confused.
A wolf who lost his pack, it seems, Soviet thought, wondering what to do with him. All his bitterness towards Reich was still balled up in his stomach and he was of half a mind to simply shoot the man and make him the one to bear the price of his painful fury.
Before Soviet could reposition himself and raise his gun however, the man looked up from his map and his dark brown eyes caught onto Soviet's golden one. In an instant, the soldier went white as chalk and he tried to grab the handgun still hanging from his belt. Soviet was faster though and aimed his gun at the man's head. The soldier froze with wide eyes. His dirty blond hair clung to his forehead and he looked to be barely eighteen of age.
Maybe younger if Reich has started drafting children yet, Soviet thought wrathfully.
"Sir," the soldier croaked in Russian, startling Soviet mildly. "Please, don't shoot. Take me prisoner." His pronunciation was off but nowhere near as much as Soviet had heard from other Germans.
He narrowed his eyes and scanned his uniform. As far as Soviet could tell, he seemed to be a common soldier. Why would one like him have an education sufficient enough to reach fluency?
"Who are you?" Soviet asked harshly, entering the room properly and keeping his gun on him.
"Erich Leudolph. I'm in close relationship with Reich—" He stuttered and nearly stumbled over his words when Soviet grew visibly more hostile and inclined to shoot him. "I-I, I'm valuable!"
"A valuable private?" Soviet's voice was threatening and low. "Am I supposed to believe that? If you're lying to me, boy—"
"I'm not lying! P-Please, I'm not." The German soldier was shaking from head to toe and sweat pearled on his forehead. "I-I can't prove it now but if you give Reich my name, he will tell you!"
"What's important about you?" Soviet demanded, stepping closer.
"I-I'm—" Suddenly the soldier looked as if he was choking and he went frighteningly stiff. His eyes were huge and looked like they were about to pop out of his head. Soviet briefly wondered if this problem would solve itself, but then the man's pupils began to twitch.
In an instant, Soviet realised what the man before him was and what was about to happen. He commanded himself to shoot him before it would be done, before he would come face to face with him. But his own limbs disobeyed him and so he simply watched in horror as the soldier's pupils narrowed down to tiny slits.
A soft hum had entered the room around them and a faint cyan hue glistened over the black of the soldier's pupils. His mouth twisted into a familiar grin that nearly seemed too big for the man's face. The skin stretched tightly to accommodate the puppeteer's wishes.
The turmoil in Soviet's chest grew bad enough to make him nauseous. Knowing that he saw him, that they could see each other again… it was nearly too much to handle.
The soldier's body relaxed briefly and Reich rolled its neck and shoulders before standing up straight and proper with his arms folded behind his back. "Good day, Soviet. Fancy meeting you here, it's been a while, wouldn't you say?"
An involuntary shiver went down Soviet's spine and he was thankful for his thick coat, which would mask his body's reaction from the other. The voice that came out of the soldier's mouth was slightly layered now, with Reich's own creeping into it subtly. Some might miss it, but Soviet could pick out the sound of it anywhere, no matter how quiet it was.
"Reich," he heard himself say through his dry mouth, making his voice sound dusty and faint. Its sound managed to pull him out of his stupor a little bit and even more so, it managed to bring his wrath back with it.
"Still a man of few words, aren't you?" Reich teased smoothly, taking a step towards him but Soviet regained control of his muscles and thrusted the barrel of the rifle harshly into the man's chest.
"I have nothing left to say to you," he spat. "You're a coward besides. If you want to face me, do it with your own body."
"Oh, I know. You must be desperate to finally see me in the flesh again, but I fear I'm not quite suicidal enough yet for such a rendezvous. I know it would end with one of us dead."
"You," Soviet snarled, twitching his finger on the trigger, "it would end with you dead."
Reich snickered. "Sure, I'll let you believe that, but the truth is, you haven't shot me yet. Oh yes, you can twitch that finger of yours all you want, but I think we both know you won't actually fire that thing."
Soviet knew he was right and nothing brought more loathing to his heart. He hadn't stopped shouting the silent command to kill him in his mind, to put an end to this. Yet he was still standing here, motionless, like a deer in headlights.
His frown deepened and he clutched the gun tighter. He might still get himself to do it, maybe if Reich tried to shoot him first… or if he annoyed him too much. He'd always been particularly skilled at that.
"What do you want?" He demanded, watching Reich's smug grin grow.
"I simply wished to check on my dear vessel." He caressed the soldier's cheek. "He'd been reported missing, so I wanted to see where he got lost and well… here you were. I do say, thinking that I came here for you is pretty vain of your, or perhaps it is simply what you were hoping for."
"It was not," Soviet grumbled darkly.
"Is that right, darling? You're hurting my feelings, you know that?"
Soviet laughed bitterly as the pet name burned under his skin. "You out of all people can't chastise me for that. If it were for me, I'd do much more than hurt your feelings."
"Then do it," Reich grinned and leaned against the barrel of the rifle, draping his arm over it. "Put this body through as much pain as you like."
Despite all his fury and hatred, there was a small heat that rose into the tips of his ears. Reich's smile was seductive as it was cunning. He'd seen it a thousand times before and even now it managed to worm its way through his senses and raise a whole different type of madness from its grave. The soldier's body was overlaid with Reich in his mind for only a moment. Disgusted with himself, he yanked the rifle away to get Reich out of the position he'd put himself in.
Reich made a surprised noise as he was knocked off balance and fell forwards, reaching out to grab onto Soviet's coat to keep from falling. On instinct, Soviet pushed his rifle back over his shoulder in a flash and gripped onto the other man's arms.
Their eyes caught onto each other. They weren't blue like Reich's but they still looked like his. His soul was in there. Soviet could feel the heat of the man he was holding seep through his gloves and his breathing faltered for just a moment. In the next, he shoved Reich off him roughly, hearing the man grunt when he hit the table with his back.
Reich took a deep breath and pushed the soldier's hair back with a soft chuckle. "Took you a while to get me off you, didn't it? I wonder why that is. More so, I wonder why you caught me."
Soviet was fuming, the blush on his cheeks and ears coming from rage now rather than any other unsavoury feelings that may or may not persisted in the back of his head. "I could ask why you fell on me too."
"Because you pulled the gun away, darling," Reich said patronisingly.
Soviet gritted his teeth and nearly reached back for his rifle again when he realised that Reich hadn't pulled his own gun on him. It was right there, at the soldier's hip. Surely Reich must know that too and yet his hand hadn't even twitch anywhere near it. He looked him up and down warily.
"You're so suspicious," Reich laughed. "I'm not going to shoot you if that's what you're worried about."
"Why not?"
Reich feigned an expression of shock. "My, darling, do you want me to shoot you?"
He couldn't take a second more of him calling him by that name. Every single time it drove a hundred needles under his skin and it made his heart ache like it hadn't in a long while, ever since he'd begun drowning it in alcohol. Telling Reich to quit it was dangerous though. He could not show such weakness or it would surely be exploited. Nevermind the fact that it would most definitely spark him to ask more uncomfortable questions Soviet didn't want to answer.
"I suppose I can arrange that…" Reich began after Soviet's pause and slowly reached his hand over to the soldier's gun.
Soviet leapt forwards in a flash, grabbed onto the collar of the man's uniform and slammed him down onto the table with enough force to make blood trickle out of his nose.
Reich groaned and then weakly chuckled between pained breaths. He raised his open hands up beside his head. "Alright, alright. I thought I was doing what you wanted me to."
"You know full well what I want," Soviet rumbled lowly.
The other man's eyes wandered downwards and then back up to Soviet's gaze. "I think I do, yes."
The heat in his ear tips returned and he unwillingly remembered many other times he'd had Reich pinned to a table just like this. But this wasn't the Reich he remembered. Not this body and not the twisted monster that hid within it either.
"You want to kill me," Reich sighed melodramatically, filling the silence once again. "Well, go ahead. Kill this body. I will miss him, oh yes, he was very promising but alas… just know that I will leave this body long before death's cold embrace could ever get close to my consciousness."
Soviet gritted his teeth again in silent frustration. Of course Reich would leave, he was a coward like that. Yet, Soviet felt as if he needed to do something to hurt him. He tried to think of something scalding, but his words were never as witty or sharp as Reich's.
Instead, he muttered, "So you propose I just let you get away?"
"I don't think you have much of an option on that front." Reich fell quiet for a moment and glanced away before continuing, "But before I go maybe we could just… talk?"
Soviet increased his weighed on him, making Reich wheeze. He attempted to read in between his lines, to decipher what he might have meant, but his pain and fury was too great to heed the small part of him who was inclined to take the offer. "I meant it when I told you that I have nothing left to say."
"Sorry to say, darling, but you've been saying a whole slew of things to me for these past ten minutes or so. Besides, aren't you having a little fun? You could've ended this ages ago, but you didn't."
Soviet stared at him grimly. It was true of course, even without killing him, he could've knocked him out or simply walked away but here he was. What's worse, there was the smallest spark of comfort somewhere inside him that grew from their banter. He barely perceived it, perhaps because he didn't want to.
They would tease each other nearly every day back then. Whenever they weren't together, they would send letters. Reich's were full of beautiful penmanship, clever observations, compliments and poetry while Soviet's felt like the clumsy confessions of a child, sappy words of a fool and a naive idiot besides. Reich had courted Soviet with flattery and intelligence, with his bold, audacious nature. Even the things that had annoyed him only served to love him more.
Today, it was clear that all teasing might've been insult wrapped in a cloak of roses. Every confession a cleverly planted seed that would grow into a vile blossom of betrayal. The fury only tasted more bitter after that sweet reminiscence.
"Now I've made you angry. Or I suppose, angrier," Reich commented.
Soviet shot him a glare that could wilt a whole field of wheat. "You're not helpful at all, do you know that?" Neither to me nor to yourself.
"I know," Reich's grin softened to a smile, "you've told me before."
In an instant, Soviet's mouth became dry again. That damned smile of his. Even on this soldier's face, even after everything, it still managed to pierce through his defences much more than it had any right to.
"You don't learn, do you?" Soviet grumbled.
"I do, but most things I learn are terrible."
There was a meaning behind the words hanging in the air, but Soviet could not grasp it in his large, clumsy hands.
"Maybe I also just like to see you mad," Reich offered.
"That would make much more sense. You must be delighted right now."
"Well, you're angry most times, so I suppose I'm always delighted."
Rage and pain warred with a long forgotten love inside his heart. He conjured up the feeling of slitting his soldier's throat. The sight of the countless corpses sprawled all over the torn-up meadow. This man's mouth held nothing but lies, and even now he was lying to him.
But to what end? It was as if Reich wanted to ensnare him again with his charm, but what else was there to gain?
He is simply sadistic, Soviet told himself. What he gains is seeing me like this. Powerless. As if I'm still the lamb to his wolf. That time has passed. I know what he is now, I see his face just how I thought he saw mine back then.
It was then he attempted to resolve himself to leave. He shouldn't entertain this a minute longer and he couldn't keep listening to his honey-coated words. They soaked into the fibres of his being and sought to sweeten every ill thought he had.
As soon as he moved the slightest bit though, Reich caught his arm.
They looked into each other's eyes again and Soviet couldn't believe what he saw in the other man's. A message even he could see, one that said, Don't Leave.
He has no right to ask this of me, Soviet thought enraged and ripped his arm out of the other's hold. "Why won't you leave me alone? Have you not done enough? Do I have to deal with your haunting forever now?"
The look on Reich's face shifted into something Soviet's couldn't follow anymore and then the soldier's pupils flickered for a moment, growing larger before contracting again.
Now it was his turn to grab onto Reich. He squeezed both his arms as if to will Reich's presence to stay in the body. "Don't you dare flee now! Don't be such a coward and answer me for once!"
The soldier's pupils quivered, expanding and contracting rapidly. Soviet watched with bated breath until they returned to being tiny, thin slits.
"I can't," he whispered and gave him a lopsided smile, right before the soldier's pupils grew round again and he collapsed in on himself.
"You… can't?" Soviet hissed. "What is that supposed to mean?"
He slapped the soldier harshly, who jerked up with a pained and confused yell. "Don't shoot me!" He croaked.
Soviet yelled in annoyance and slammed the soldier back down onto the table, barely hearing him whimper in pain. His thoughts raced and his blood boiled in his veins. Another trick, another waste of his time, another instance of Reich toying with him.
I should've kill this man. I should've knocked him out. I should've done anything besides staying here and allowing myself to listen to him. Soviet gripped his fists and closed his eye, attempting to somehow deal with everything that had just unfolded.
He hadn't full digested the fact he spoke to Reich again. How was he expected to accept all he had said?
The sound of movement came from behind him and Soviet rubbed his face. He needed to focus on the enemy soldier that was still here with him. Since he evidently was one of Reich's vessels, he might prove useful. He must have plenty of knowledge. There was another reason why he might wish to keep a direct line to Reich but he refused to look at it. It wasn't one that concerned him.
He turned and grabbed the man by the collar of his uniform again. "You're coming with me," he hissed. "Turns out, you were not lying to me. As useful as you are to Reich, I'm sure you can be of even more use to me."