# 𝒹0𝑮ₜ7𝑮𝑺 a dependent and private muse blog affiliated with ₒₚₛ₄₁₆. currently starring 𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙪𝙨 𝙫𝙖𝙨𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙘𝙚𝙡𝙤𝙨, bsaa operative and recon specialist for the bravo strike team, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘸 𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘬.
foster cannot train on his holster ( it was too hostile for such merriment ) so he kept his hands pocketed, hands balled against his thighs as if a final resort to keep them occupied. strange, he's only ever known to bury his violence. he's not quite listening but vasco is talking, voice soft at the edges, picking away at the strap of his holster like a blushing scab. velcro rasping. the sound makes cal's teeth feel loose in his gums.
VASCO SAYS IT FEELS WRONG. THIS IS NOT SOMETHING FOSTER WILL ACKNOWLEDGE.
he's too busy watching his feet move up the gravel ⸺ the sort that wedged loosely into the grooved soles of his boots. one foot in front of the next, counting the steps. he's done it before: walked these roads. walked worse ones. listened to men talk their way around how the world works. lying doesn't feel like anything, anymore. it was just a thing foster did. like pulling a trigger, sopping up the mess after.
YOU HAVE TO THINK ABOUT WHAT IT IS TO BE THE ONE LYING.
because it is his third nature: a man of not-truths. said things he doesn't mean. told lies he wished he could believe. because sometimes lying was cleaner, kept people from looking too close ( lies like: i'll be home soon. lies like: my name is callum foster. ) vasco's still going on about something grotesque.
" it's not about how it feels, "
foster tilts his head up from the ground and draws a long breath, lets the cold sear his throat dry. he considers the lies he's told. the ones he's been told. the way people survived by making things sound better than they were. " it's about what it gets you. "
a sound came out of him. a leveret sidling up to his siblings in the cold of a burrow. acceptance, but not yet agreement. cold air settled into his lungs like a deep, bad thought. callum spoke with the kind of certainty that only came from making peace with something ugly. vasco wasn't sure if he envied him for that. a period of silence was punctuated by a look from vasco. he couldn't see himself, or even imagine his face at the moment. but if he could, he would see his mother. his mother when she knew his arms were not developed enough to carry the basket up the stairs but the echoey, childish boy was so confident he could handle it that it might be harmful for her to take that away.
“yeah.” he said after a long moment, unwinding his hands from the velcro straps and reweaving them into his hair. his bottom lip caught between his teeth, worrying the skin there as the words came to him. “but i think that's the part that bothers me.”
“because if lying is just a means to an end, what happens when the end is here? when you're doing it because its what you are.” his breath came out a little ragged, like the thought physically exhausted him. “you do something long enough, it stops feeling like a choice.”
# INT. vesna night, mid-patrol philosophising. twenty-six past 13:00. WITH @d0gt7gs
spring had not yet come and the land had been stale with it, the absence. of abundance. of unclouded skies. harvest, too. foster had known early on what truance could breed among a society on the fringe. absence was equally a presence ( A LESSON IN HAVE-NOT ) the people of krovograd would learn to make do with. because there was nothing left but to survive. to smile up at the black sky only if to acknowledge that you could. that you were here, by all odds. living had become rightful cause for celebration. and much like spring ⸺ could not be promised come morning.
he'd know this yearly flourish as a child, mouth full up of honey cake, brimming with enough sugar to last him the summer. content.
EXCEPT, HE SHOULDN'T REMEMBER. FOSTER DOES NOT ALLOW HIMSELF TO BELONG TO THESE MEMORIES.
there is no child before the man he has become. on paper, his history tracks presently. a man hurdled into existence eight and four quarters of a month before his assignment. callum foster was a stranger to himself, but most begrudgingly, not to the man with whom he walked the square. they'd crossed the length of it twice by the time wafting boredom encroached. there was only so much silence that could be stretched over unwanted company. only so many dead-ended, useless questions foster could bare before ⸺ " well, fool me once ... " because of course they've begun to argue the ethics of deceit amid their errand; foster does not ponder it, no fray in the still of his voice. though, a smile prongs. cordial but not to be mistaken. " i'll probably kill you. "
vasco had been fiddling with the strap of his holster more than paying attention. it had an interesting texture. the type of velcro that wasn't tacky or fuzzy, but a clean, firm feeling. vasco hated the fuzzy velcro. he's sure his uniform had been mostly comprised of it at some point, but trips to his mothers to replace it and begging quartermasters had culminated in most of the textures of his uniform being manageable.
“huh?” he said once he realized he had zoned out. “oh, no, i mean. lying is useful, right?" most of vasco's job, if he was honest. if he wasn't buried in a dirty pit with his rifle glued to his eyeball. he'd started calling them bunny holes just to feel something. in an inventor's expo in moscow, he was lying. in a kentucky-based chatroom, he lied. he lies all the time. still, his mom was catholic. genetically-spread guilt.
“sometimes, it feels icky, though, right? like i get it. we have secrets. sometimes you need to lie for the mission, or to keep a civilian safe. but telling a miner's wife that he's already dead when everyone with a radio can still hear him choking on air feels wrong.” he paused, wondering if he took the scenario too far. “i mean, you can't just take into account how being lied to feels. you have to think about what it is to be the one lying.”
ghosts are not real ⸻ that one belief sticks to nina like glue and, even if she does not remember if she believed it before or not, she believes it now. or, she tries to believe. there are no spirits that stick around earth for unfinished business, no souls that hang around for longer than they have to; especially in a place like krovograd where, in a matter of a few months, nina could already understand it's a dying city ( whether there is hope or not, it doesn't matter at the end of the day ⸻ it is a dying breed ).
such a belief is a thin line to walk, especially when the world seems to be on the verge of a turning point: one there is no return from. and it is an hard thing to rely on when there are strangers that bring with them a sense of familiarity that is both welcome and alien to nina. the operative in front of her is one of those hauntings ⸻ a ghost that reminds nina of the curse that she has been living with. part of her thinks perhaps it was a blessing, her own mind concocting a form of protection that proves hard to get around. and then, she always asks: protecting her from what?
nina narrows her eyes and keeps them trained on the bsaa before her. and then, she lets out a sharp scoff at the words, amused at the choice of white flag waving. "oh, yeah?" eyebrow raises, a defiant ( yet playful ) expression grows. "from all of the one minute we've been in each other's presence? how perceptive." nina shakes her head, takes another sip of the bottle she's been nuring ⸻ somehow, stolen booze just tastes better.
she continues. "and i am not sulking." a matter of fact. nina motions towards the bonfire, the crowds of people that just want to get through the night, the smell of food that feels all too much. "all of that is just... more than i want to deal with right now." it's a quiet admittance, another sip taken from subpar alcohol. what is she meant to do when every look at the bonfire threatens to send images into her mind that she cannot decipher from wants or memories?
nina eyes him again. she ponders for a few moments before speaking again. "are you going to join or are you just gonna stand there for your... breath of fresh air, was it?"
he watches her in the dim light, half expecting the world to shift underneath him. for a flicker of recognition, for her face to crack into a mocking grin, a hesitation at the very least. but it doesn't come. vasco thought maybe something in his voice, the way he moved. but there's nothing. the cold, ugly thing has sunken in. teeth into organs. he kicks at the ground before approaching.
vasco sat a safe distance away. not too far, just right in reach. but he isn't sure why he would task the risk. whether it be to grab her, or push her away. like a flashing sign at the side of the freeway, the words recycled themselves in his head. this isn't volkova. it started to sound a bit like his mother's voice. this isn't your volkova, pequenino, you'd do well to remember. so he does what he's always done. he lies.
“well," his voice is so suddenly light and cheery that his volkova would smack him for startling her while she messes with the mag of a rifle. his head tilts slightly towards her as he leans back on his hands. “couldn't leave you drinking alone, could i?”
his eyes flicker to the bottle in her hands. years ago, he would reach for it. their hands would brush awkwardly, and he would make some stupid joke about sharing popcorn at the cinema like preteen sweethearts. she would probably flip him off and tell him her preteen would never go for his preteen, he's too clingy. they would laugh until someone else at the barracks would shush them. his fingers twitch beneath him, caged between the rest of his body and the surface beneath them.
he dreamed of her again last night. the woman from the woods. wood-brown hair falling around a lab coat, too white to belong in the thick of krovograd's rot. but she wasn't wearing a lab coat in the woods, was she? that came later. or before. she carried a notebook. she always did. deep in the recesses of fort varlamov, where she had never set foot, but where he saw her anyway. watching. writing. in the woods, where he had stumbled and fallen, his body writhing against damp earth and dead leaves. she had knelt beside him then, hadn't she? or was that another trick of memory, warped and stitched back together wrong?
in his mother’s house, the warm sea air slipping through open windows. she had no place there. but she stood at the kitchen table, flipping through pages as though she had been invited. the air smelled of home. of strong coffee, of salt. and yet, beneath it, the sharp bite of antiseptic. his father’s blood stained the tiles, red atop a sun-warmed orange. it stained the bottom of her boots.
vasco told himself it was the aftereffects. his body wringing out whatever had been done to it. nothing permanent. he had told only captain riley and lieutenant kilic when he returned. a truncated version, surely, because he hadn't remembered entirely what happened himself. but he was checked out and cleared fairly quickly. they had to, they weren't sending anyone else into this hellhole. they needed him ready.
still, maybe he was a bit thankful they didn't ask about the dreams. about the fleeting movement in the edges of his vision. it wasn't like it was making him unusable. he could still work. still fight. it was muscle memory by now. as long as he could stay quiet, he could do it by rote. even if, sometimes, he thought he could hear a pen scratching against paper.
too many people, too many shifting shapes in the fire’s glow. the noise pressed in from all sides. he had never liked crowds. but blending in was safer than standing out, and for once, he had no rifle slung over his back, only a pistol tucked into the small of his spine. he knew the others in bravo squad were around, shifting clockwise so one person never patrolled one square too long. vasco wasn't sure how alpha squad were placed, but this was the best option for the recon team. to wear a mask of their own.
the rusty anvil was in his grid for the next hour, so he'd stopped in. old gregor liked to glare at outsiders, but if you bought something it usually simmered him down to a heated glance every once in a while. a pint in his hand. a bite of something in his stomach. he felt... good. solid. he let himself breathe.
until she walked in. familiar. wrong. out of place. right at home. her eyes swept the room, scanning. searching. then they landed on him. his heart, as solid as it had felt today, he felt it drop. almost heard it bang against the floor. fucking hell.
sometimes, he needed to clear his head. even the most loyal dog required a break from hunting. to do the work konstantin did meant grit — the things he saw daily were things some people couldn't handle once. on the few occasions where his hands trembled and he felt his resolve shaking, he'd walk. best way to clear his mind. except now the bsaa was sniffing around the city, closing in on black veil. no better proof of their stain on the city than now — his steps uncovered, a pistol pointed at him, and thank everything that he'd switched to civilian clothes.
the voice ordering him to identify himself registered as familiar.
kostya had never quite been on the right side of things. here was one of his old nuisances: shared missions on opposite sides, one always trying to take down the other. of course he would be here. just his luck. playing along, he raised his hands in a gesture of innocence. wolfish grin on his face betrayed that attempt. even with the danger of possibly being caught, he wanted to get under vasco's skin.
“where's the fun in that? you know me, anyway.” arms lowered, he gestured at his attire. “you've caught me at a bad time. it's vesna night. don't even have a gun to match.”
true enough, even if he had the soft weight of a knife in his boot. a fight wasn't what he wanted right now — not like that, at least. “no evildoing here. you can head straight back to wherever it is you crawled out.”
he rolled his eyes so hard it was a wonder they didn't stick. the moment he recognized him, a familiar annoyance coiled beneath his skin. in his gut. amrani. who else? of course, the pool of men like them had to be thinning out by now. the cockroaches beneath the rocks of earth's horrors, they have both survived more than their fair share. often spending the time they should have been trying to outsmart the other.
against what would have been better judgement, he holstered his weapon. vasco knew him. knew him a bit better than most of his team at the current moment. he knew he couldn't be trusted, but he also knew it was unlikely a shoot-out would benefit him. and as far as he knew, kostya didn't do anything that didn't benefit him.
“we should start getting matching keychains.” his voice was anything but friendly, and his eyes narrowed as he took the time to reclip his holster. vasco fought the urge to just walk away. maybe pretend like he hadn't seen him, like he didn't have to deal with this shit right now. but there was no avoiding it. kostya had always found ways to get under his skin, and even though he was clearly not in the mood for any of his antics, he couldn’t just ignore him. the man was here in front of him. of course, he was. “have a whole collection of the places we beat the fuck out of each other. it would be great!” sarcasm dripped from his voice. still, there was always a bit of a nagging feeling when they separated.
“thought we really got you last time. what was it? using active combat zones on catalina island to smuggle guns?" he remembered, because of course he fucking did. vasco stuck his hands into the sides of his vest to keep them warm. “i shot you, didn't i? how did you get treatment? i had a medic on hand and still almost died from where you got me.” loathe as he was to admit it, kostya was one of the only people he's seen bring a knife to a gun fight and nearly win. he's got a nasty scar right in between his ribs to prove it.
"A little lost is all I am." A disembodied voice floats out in response, all perfect diction and crystal-clear enunciation. It's evident from accent alone that its owner is not local, nor are they one that ought to strike fear into the core of one's being—and when Ani finally steps out from behind the slab, appearing from the the darkness, hands lifted up high, empty palms facing out for him to see that she means no harm. She's just an innocent bystander, someone who got a little waylaid at their way to the festivities; that's her story, if asked. [She suspects she will be asked.]
She's done her part to dress for a festival, at least, albeit not one for this region. If she were some two thousand kilometres away, in a country she's never known, she would look half-ready to celebrate Trndez, ready to leap over a lit fire and stuff her face with aghandz. There's the stark contrast of combat boots peeking out from beneath burgundy trousers, muddied hems hiding the golden embroidery so lovingly sewn by her own mother, all those years ago.
Lost. It's not outlandishly far from the truth, Ani reckons. [Aren't we all in this life?] But she knows what he is, knows what side he stands on—diametrically opposed they are, and right now, she has the upper hand of knowing who her opponent is. All it took was a little eavesdropping, some light footwork and sneaking. Not quick enough, though. Still, she thinks she can work with this.
"I suppose it's what I get for wandering around here without an escort."
vasco’s grip on his pistol tightened as the woman stepped into view. she looked so… harmless. for a moment, he calmed, but only for a fraction of a second before he reminded himself that nothing was ever as it seemed here. “lost.” he repeated, eyes narrowing as he studied her every movement. he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was playing some kind of game. one that he wasn’t meant to understand yet. too calm, too composed for someone who had stumbled into the middle of a warzone. he shifted his stance slightly, not fully lowering the pistol, but not bringing it to bear just yet.
"you know what you're wandering around in the middle of?" his tone was quieter now, but there was a hard edge to it. "not all fun and games out here." he scanned the space behind her, as if she could have snuck an army by him. she snuck by him. it was the main reason for his skepticism. not many people could stand that long in vasco's presence without alerting him. “lost isn't a name.” his hand stiffened on his weapon, and his shoulders squared suddenly, like he broke free from a distraction. a battle between the helpful young man he was raised as and the discerning, distrustful soldier he'd become. “i'm sure i can help get you where you're going, ma'am, but i'm gonna need more to go on unless you want to be walked to town like this. i know festivals can get a little wild, but i don't think they'd appreciate armed escorts.”
time: around 1900 hours ( 7 PM ). location: outskirts of the festival. status: for matheus vasconcelos ( @d0gt7gs )
nina sits on a makeshift bench, away from the bonfire ━━ the light still reaches her but the warmth of it is long gone. she simply looks at it, flashes of memories burning within its' flame ( dances she had done before, nights she had spent warming herself by the fire and the alcohol in her hand, faces she feels familiarity towards but nothing else comes ) and she cannot look away.
it all feels like a trainwreck to her: she wants to tear her gaze away, spare herself the headache of trying to remember anything ━━ it will come to her when it has to. that's what she tells herself every day that passes and she is no closer to finding answers to questions that plague her so. that's what she tells herself as she takes a swig at a bottle of a drink she managed to swipe from someone that is just having too much fun. that's when she hears footsteps cleaving her much wanted solitude in two.
"the festival is that way." she points towards the bonfire light opposite of where she sits, eyeing the other's outfit top to bottom. "i'm sure you're capable of finding your way back." it's not the bsaa that she minds ( not yet ) ━━ it's the company.
his gaze flickers over the slope of her shoulders, the way her fingers curl around the bottle like it’s more about keeping her hands busy than drinking. his chest tightens, the air between them thick with something unspoken. he wonders if he's imagining it. he exhales slow, measured, like it’ll settle something in him. it doesn’t. it only makes it worse. there’s a quiet panic simmering under his skin, a constant tug-of-war between wanting to pull away and wanting to grab her by the shoulders, shake her until she says something. anything.
vasco doesn’t react right away, lingering at the edge of the fire’s reach where the light can’t quite touch him. the festival hums behind them. laughter, music, the occasional crack of a bottle against stone. but here, in the quiet, it all feels distant. unimportant. the sound of her voice a lot like the dreams he's been having since he got here. damning. haunting.
she doesn't look at him. doesn't see him. not the way she should. she doesn't know. or she’s pretending not to. either way, he doesn't have a leg to stand on. being the first to speak could break something. could endanger her. could get him killed. he has no information. a cold amusement blankets him at the thought. he has no information.
“relax, just needed a breath of fresh air.” he said, keeping his tone level. unreadable. he'd been watching her for the better part of an hour. praying that he was wrong. he wasn't. it was her. “didn't peg you for the type to sulk.” as if she's a stranger. as if the weight in his chest isn’t suffocating. as if her disappearance didn't put him in four months of grief counseling. as if he didn't light a candle for her next to his father's.
𝙶𝚁𝙸𝙳 entrance to the metro, krovograd. 1400 hours. 42.244302 50.345243.
𝙿𝙴𝚁𝚂𝙾𝙽𝙽𝙴𝙻 lt. vasconcelos & anyone. (2/5)
with his eyes and his rifle trained on the dark, vasco stood at a crater of collapsed cement and ground. they were all assigned closer to the main settlement today, but it didn't start for hours, and he'd seen the collapse from his blind and needed to get a closer look. he tapped his foot to the fragile edge and watched as the bit of pavement he'd shaken loose rolled down the definite ramp the earth had somehow formed. so, not a sinkhole then. an entrance.
if he were a local desperate, hunted this would be the kind of place he’d run to. but the faint sound of scraping from below told him the paper skins would think the same. he reached for his chest rig and waited for the sound of his radio crackling to life. “bravo-07 to base, marking point of interest. possible metro entrance, roughly 4 klicks north of bunny hole two. standing by for orders. over.” vasco kicked another rock down the sloping abyss as he waited.
his radio cracked again before a voice came through: “copy that, bravo-07. do not engage alone. return to post. over and out.” vasco scoffed, but flicked the safety of his rifle on and spun it around to rest down his back. but it seemed that whatever was watching him didn't expect him to turn. he caught the flash of boots disappear behind debris about ten feet away from the collapse, and unholstered the pistol from his leg. hiding isn't normally an infected activity, so the pistol was precautionary.
“woah, woah.” he edged farther from the collapsed entrance, peering around the jagged concrete slab where the shadow had vanished. the air was stale, thick with dust and something faintly metallic. blood, maybe. silence. then the flutter of movement, and a breath that wasn't his finally releasing. like they had been holding it but it finally slipped out. human, atleast. but everyone's supposed to be preparing. “identify yourself.”