Dude, I just watched one episode of Chicago Meds where Nikolai's Voice actor played, and I can't believe they didn't give Nikolai more voice lines, it's such a waste of potential. 😭
drabble // beach day with the one and only soap mactavish.
"johnny, can't you be quiet for a moment?" you ask, putting dots of sunscreen on your boyfriend's back. you've tried to reason with him multiple times about the importance of being protected against solar radiation, but does he care? not in the slightest.
"cannae do it quicker?" he retorts, feet anxiously tapping the sand as you lather the cream on his shoulders.
you roll your eyes, finishing distributing the remaining white spots of the product and moving to his front. "look up for me," your index tilts his chin upwards, narrowed eyes meeting his eager blue ones, "just a second, love," you say, fingers gently spreading the sunblock on his forehead, nose, cheeks and neck.
he squeezes your waist repeatedly, a childish attempt to urge you to end his torture. with a peck on his lips, you put him out of his misery, "all done," and the man leaps out of his seat, wasting no time to dig in the sand.
do you love yourself? no? that's okay this character you love loves you back. are you kind? that is why they love you. are you patient? that is why they love you. are you a coward are you shy are you brave are you bold are you bratty? that is why they love you. you are loved and you will not be punished for seeking love. you are loved and you will find it here in these words.
do you love yourself yet? no? that's okay this character can love you until you do. this character will point out the few traits you can relate with yourself (your smile, your laugh, you brattiness, your whimsy, your strength, your sorrow) and tell you that they love that about you until one day you can love it, if not yourself, too.
do you love yourself yet? no? but you're starting to accept that you can be loved? that there is something in you- your awkwardness, your bashfulness, your straightforward mind, you ability to heal, your ability to fight- that someone could look at and learn to adore? well done. you're right, this character does see that and adore it. you may not love yourself just now, just yet, but now you see right? That there is something to love in you?
Friendly Reminder once again that y’all don’t OWN the FPS gun man on the screen; it’s very off putting and concerning how aggressive people are for them.
Rating: Explicit (MDNI)
Wordcount: 5k
Tags: Character study, Age gap, Light Dom/Sub, Fluff, Slowburn, Smut, Dominant Nikolai, Soft Nikolai, Aftercare, Orgasm delay/denial, Light BDSM dynamics, Cuddling, Corruption kink, Brat Taming, Overstimulation, Dirty talk in Russian, Power dynamics, A dose of manipulation but everything is consensual
Warnings: Brief mention of capture and torture
A/N: This is my first and most likely not my last attempt to write for Nikolai. I really like this dynamic and welcome requests for more
When Nik first meets you, you try to rob him.
You’d been younger then. Wilder, scared of a world you struggled to survive in. With hardly a roof over your head, always an empty belly, chased by ghosts of a past you struggled to leave behind. You were desperate, constantly looking for a way out, clawing and scrambling at the stone alleyways in hopes you could one day see the sky.
He finds you like that- as a dirty, fierce little stray. In a grimy jacket, eyes wild, dirt smeared across your face, you hold up a knife to him and demand his wallet. Stupid, you know, but shivering, scared of the world that was destined to eat you alive, choosing a target far bigger than yourself.
Cute, he’d admitted later.
It takes little effort from him to twist the knife from your hand, examining it as you froze in a shock that only seems to multiply when he asks you if you want a warm meal. The offer is too tempting to ignore to your growling stomach, but in reality it’s the barest hint of softness behind his eyes that has you follow him like a kicked stray out of the cold.
Little did you know, behind that softness lay his own hunger. A deep, prowling thing that circled you beyond your sight.
He takes you to a quiet little eatery, out of the way, only three tables in what amounted to a shed. One of his favorites, he tells you with a smirk. The cook gives you both a look, suspicious of the man who had escorted in a woman much younger than him, dirty and nervous as you are. Nik lets you order, smirking still as you nervously pick something small, cheap, and he instead orders something large and warm for you. He watches you scarf down the entirety of your meal, gazing at him suspiciously all the while. He’s quiet- appraising you later realized.
You know of men like him. Gangsters, thugs, men who work alongside the mafia or even worse. Men from the underbelly of Russian society who walk in plainclothes and hold dark secrets. You know the danger of accepting favors from men like him. Be it your body, your servitude, or a debt paid in blood, men like those you feared would come to collect in due course, would bleed you dry and leave you ruined given the chance. The only charity they offered served their own interests, the cause they flew their flag for.
It became clear as time grew that Nikolai was not much different, that he had taken one look at you and had seen the thing you never saw in yourself:
Potential.
In the end he tells you if you ever need work to come find him, and find him you do.
You’d been foolish, you think back, if only because you’d been so young, naive without the lessons he would soon teach you.
It’s simple things at first. Taking packages and dropping them off at seemingly random locations, picking up things from shady characters who’d let their eyes rake down your form. In exchange Nikolai offers you a warm place to sleep, a roof over your head, hot meals and shelter from the ghosts that chase you. Distant, professional, but there all the same. Steadfast, waiting for your skittishness to shed itself before he comes closer. Waiting. Expectant.
Curious, you’d watch as he tinkers on his helicopter, cleans his cache of weapons, fixes the aging appliances in his house outside Saratov where the remains of the Soviet legacy lay etched between the old manors of the дворянство.
You observe, quiet at a distance, and ask him about the life he led, to which he was vague.
“I fix things.” He tells you simply, snapping a cartridge back into place with practiced efficiency.
You wondered then, if he was trying to fix you too.
He welcomes your interests in his work, skittish though you are, ready to dart back to a safe distance at a moment’s notice. You peer over his shoulder as he works at his tool bench in the hangar, assist him as he tightens screws on his helicopter, pass him ingredients as he cooks dinner for you both on his stove. Rather than answer any questions you pose, Nik elects to show you himself, putting his hands over yours and allowing them to guide you with ease in his tasks.
His protege, he introduces you as to those that ask. The younger woman he had taken under his tutelage. You’d almost resented it at the time, still suspicious, ready to flee at the first instance of betrayal. Yet inside you knew it was too late. In the same way that wolves became dogs, you found yourself near the fire of him, resting your weary bones as he offered you a place to stay.
Even if he held a leash behind his back.
Nik is careful, stern as a teacher but tender as a friend. In moments of learning his voice is whip-sharp to correct any mistakes, but in the quiet evenings he is almost soft, blunted at the edges in a way that betrays his indulgence in you. Each time he gets close, you try to ignore the way his touch lingers, holding back, greedy but restrained as your heart flutters inside your chest. Purposeful, careful not to spook you lest it ruin the things he’s predestined for you.
You try not to miss him when he leaves you behind for work, reminding yourself this is only temporary, to not let your guard down lest he burn you. He will someday stop having a use for you, and you will once again walk into the wild seeking shelter under a different name.
When he returns, you try to ignore the relief that bubbles inside your chest, the desperate hunger of a lonely thing looking for warmth.
You don’t see the glittering silver collar he envisions in his mind.
The teaching moments are constant. It’s not long before Nikolai begins taking you on assignments rather than leaving you at the house alone. You become familiar with the inside of the chopper, and learn to doze in the co-pilot seat when you are allowed. You help him catalog his ammo and supplies, listen over your headset as he explains piloting to you. In meetings with suppliers and clients he tells you quietly to stay inside the chopper behind him, and you peek out to see the eyes of his ‘friends’ flicking towards you. Curious, even as Nik stood as a stalwart wall between you and them.
In the passenger seat of his truck you learn to carefully balance his chosen rifle on your lap, feeling the stiffness ease from your shoulders as he lays a heavy hand across your nape. On long drives he stops at sunset to admire the view, and you hover close to his side as he smokes long drags of cigars. When he encourages you to try you cough on the smoke, and he thumps you between your back gently, chuckling even when you shoot him a glare. The next morning finds you somewhere new, and the lessons resume.
All the while his careful guidance reminds you to keep your eyes up, to stay alert, focused, to heed his warnings and obey his orders when given.
Nik is an endless wealth of knowledge when it comes to his profession. He’s deliberate in the things he teaches you: how to calculate the distance of a target 100 meters away, what the warning lights on the helicopter console meant, how to handle the kickback of a machine gun, where the major organs of the body were located and how to slice them open in deadly fashion. You take to the lessons easily as predators take to the snap of bone between jaws, and can’t help but preen with every accomplishment, every feat you manage to show him.
“Good girl.” He offers when you finish the task assigned to you, noticing the way you stiffen, a shiver racing down your spine at the praise. Testing the waters, quietly moving goalposts in his mind as he maps your future before you.
When you fell ill during that first winter he nurses you, sits your sluggish form up in bed against his chest and watches as you finish what little food you could stomach. When you insist on drinking with him one evening, pass beyond your tolerance, he smooths a hand over your back as you bend over the toilet bowl and whispers soothing reassurances in your ear. When you cut your palm on the edge of a tool bench in his helicopter hangar he lets you squeeze his hand as he pours alcohol over the gash, reminding you the wound would make you stronger. When you take a swig of the vodka to settle your nerves after your first mission with him he hums happily, murmuring an ounce of praise that settles low in your veins like warm liquor.
You let him, suspicious though you are, so desperate for a place to belong, to be taken care of, to have somewhere in which to shelter the storm. Nikolai is your mentor, yes, but more than that Nik shapes himself into your ally, into someone you can turn to, to a man you look to and seek praise from like turning your face to the sun.
Teaching you to eat from the palm of his hand.
You trail behind him at a distance, eyes softening and heart weary, seeking a soft place in which to rest itself. Nikolai is not a soft man, you remind yourself. Tender as he can be, his true heart remains a shadowed thing like all the men and women he keeps close. Even so you cling fast to that same shadow, hovering at his side as he makes a place for you there.
He’d plucked you from the wilds, had taken you like a starved, injured, feral animal into his care. You’d growled and snapped at him, unsure, suspicious of the twinkle behind his eyes that betrayed intentions you couldn’t quite discern. It was as if he knew the things you were capable of before even you could see them, the way he shaped you slowly under his care.
You stay there when he introduces you to his allies, to Price who looks at your skittish, suspicious nature and to Nik with a disapproving but knowing stare. You hear the meaning to it later as you creep downstairs to listen to them smoke outside.
“I won’t say anything.” Price tells him gruffly. “God knows I have my own vices. Just don’t ruin her, Nik.”
Nikolai takes a long, purposeful pause as he considers.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, captain.”
Price chuffs, but comments no further.
Slowly, Nik begins to move closer to you, getting you used to his touch. It seems incidental at first. Squeezing too close behind you in the kitchen and offering a chuckling apology as you feel his hips press against your spine; leaning over you to inspect your work, rubbing a hand between your shoulders after a hard day and relishing the tiniest little sigh you offer in return.
In his teachings he is deliberate, gauging your progress under a keen eye, offering life lessons just as he purrs little doses of praise at your progress. He knows you wouldn’t leave now, you’ve become too accustomed to a life under his care. So slowly, Nik begins to test the boundaries of your trust in him, pushing a little farther each time and leaving you dizzy in the wake of him.
In the hot days of summer he works with his shirt off, the broad span of his back glistening with sweat. You tell yourself it is just the warmth of the sun that lays upon your cheeks, but even then you find your eyes straying, catching his own knowing gaze at a distance. Teasing, waiting, expectant.
“Smells good.” He hums over your shoulder as you made breakfast one morning, bacon simmering in the pan. “You’d make a good wife.”
When you feel heat rise to your face, stammering and scandalized, Nik only laughs.
“Шучу.” He grins. “Just kidding.”
It doesn’t seem to be that much of a joke, not with the way Nik is so comfortable around you these days, easing into your personal space just enough to make your heart race, dangerous thoughts of the ‘what if?’ lingering even after he’s pulled away.
On longer jobs he puts a cot in the back of the chopper to sleep on. Normally he likes to sleep in the pilot seat- vigilant and ready to take off at the slightest hint of trouble. Yet sometimes he complains about his aging back and squeezes in behind you, tucking you against the wall and arranging you so you both share what little space there is. You can’t really find it in yourself to complain, taking in the warm, musky scent of his and letting it lull you into dreams.
Slowly, you come to him. You ease into his touch, to the way his hand rubs across your shoulders in greeting, the way he holds your hand as you stiffened during client negotiations. In the evenings he sometimes watches terrible knock-off action movies, rolls his eyes at the impossible stunts as you nod off on his shoulder. Comfortable, you curl into him- seeking the place you belonged, and Nik quietly smiles at the wild creature that has made a home in his heart.
On the odd stretches of time where there are few assignments to follow through from his strange clientele, Nik takes you on his version of a holiday. He brings you to places you’ve never been, restaurants in cities you didn’t know existed.
“Try this.” He tells you in that smirk of his, lifting an oyster from the Caspian Sea to your lips, loaded with butter and spices. You make a face as you swallow, lips closing around his fingers, and don’t notice the way Nik’s eyes flick to the bob of your throat, distracted. “Good girl.”
The praise sends a shiver up your spine, alighting inside you with the need to please him- this man who has taken you in, sheltered you, is teaching you everything he knows.
You don’t realize the danger you’re in when you realize you’ve gotten too comfortable.
It’s a sunny Wednesday morning when you’re taken.
Being the pretty, feral thing at Nik’s side comes with a fair bit of attention. People begin to notice the beautiful vixen at his side. Whispers of your skills echo in the halls of underground bunkers and private airliners. Nik is known to work alone, so to see you with him as his protege, his partner, his co-pilot that he trusts as much as he mentors, means that you’re a target.
You pop out for groceries on his old Soviet era moped, having pestered Nikolai for pirozhkis for dinner- to which he told you only if you fetched the ingredients yourself. You ignore the small gaggle of men smoking near the corner store, common as they were in your neighborhood. It’s only when you come out with your arms full that they spring on you.
Your head cracks against a stone wall. The world goes dark.
When you come to, you’re somewhere you don’t recognize. barely lucid, head pounding, they try and ask you questions about him you can’t answer. There’s things Nik keeps secret from you for your own safety, and the things they want to know are among them. The blows come, knock you from your chair, and you’re left alone in the cellar, trying to understand how the nightmare you dreaded before you met him could have come true after all.
The difference is- now they’ve made a mistake. They took you after he’d taught you how to survive.
The men who took you are stupid. They underestimate you, tying the ropes too loose for your frame. You manage to get your hands free first as Nik has taught you, then your feet. In the corner of the cellar a sliver of light peeks through broken slats, and despite your battered limbs and bruised hands, you peel the plank off quietly so it reveals the underbelly of the house. Like digging a den, you crawl your way into the earth, beyond the foundation, and stumble into the night before your captors even decide to check on you.
Escaping the snare, as wild things do.
It’s early in the morning when you manage to stumble to the back gate of the house. You trip over a loose rock in the soil, collapse in a heap of bruised limbs and fatigue just beyond the back step. The door swings open, and you close your eyes before you can see the sight of Nikolai with a rifle in his hands, ready to fend off intruders.
“лисёнок.” He murmurs hoarsely as he gathers you in his arms, cooing his name for you as you whimper into his chest. Injured, broken, limping back to him. Only him. “What did they do to you?”
You don’t tell him, too exhausted to form words, slumping against him and letting the crash of adrenaline pull you blissfully under.
When you wake up, you’re in his bed. Bandaged, tucked in tightly. He’s washing blood off his hands in the sink.
You don’t realize until later it isn’t yours.
You never ask him what he did to those men while you were asleep, maiming them, killing them for the offense of hurting you, only to come home and haul your figure close to him with whispered reassurances that they’d never touch you again.
Things...change after that.
It wasn’t as if Nik wasn’t affectionate before- he was. Nik’s fondness of you was intertwined with his mentorship. Yet there was always a sort of distance involved. Teasing, playful, interested but careful not to push too far lest he spook you away too soon.
Now, as you cling to him in the aftermath of your capture, shiver and feel your bandaged fingers grip at his shirt, Nik is indulgent.
He lets you sniffle into his chest, rubs his hand along the knot of your spine and rumbles low, soothing words in Russian. He hauls you to him, calls you quiet pet names, cuddles you close and reminds you you’re safe.
In your recovery Nik spoils you, allows you to take all the time you need. You sleep until noon, a rare luxury under his tutelage, and find him cooking your favorite meals when you wake. When you call for him, he’s there, helping you ascend the stairs with your mending knee. He sets you on the couch in warm blankets so you watch movies of your choice until you doze off, to which he carries you upstairs and tucks you quietly, sweetly, back into bed.
All this and more, as Nikolai silently declares to himself that he is never letting you go.
When you recover, the gentleness doesn’t seem to stop. Yet with it comes a sternness, a demand to yield to his promise to care for you, to keep you safe. The hole of want inside you yawns open for him, looking to his care, his guidance, seeking ways to please him. You’re softer now, no less deadly, but the softness in the aftermath has you brushing against him, yearning for his embrace, which Nik offers readily.
With his nose buried in your hair, your arms wrapped around his waist, Nik smiles at the silver snare he’s circled around your throat.
and, silently, he begins to pull.
“Behave.” He tells you when you snarl at a supplier who tries to upcharge him, and Nik lays a heavy hand on your nap that somehow feels like a warning. It settles low in your stomach, warm and liquid with a want you don’t understand yet but need all the same.
“That’s my girl.” He hisses as you stitch a gash on his arm after close contact when you were flying out of a hot zone. He takes another swig of his vodka and groans just as a drip of red oozes down your fingers. You shudder at the sound, feeling something pull taut below your belly, trying to echo the praise quietly in your thoughts.
“Pretty thing.” He smiles as he offers you one of his spare shirts on mission. You swore you had packed more, but the scent of him clings to your skin and it distracts you enough to not question it. You warm under his words, curl up beside him when he gestures. Obedient, wanting.
You think he’s gone from the chopper that night, tucked on the cot and sneaking a hand under your panties to rub idly at yourself- thinking of him. You’re surrounded by the scent of him, swaddled by a phantom of his warmth, and imagining what it would feel like to have his fingers inside you, stroking, coaxing wetness to trickle down the breadth of them. What would it be like, you wonder, for him to hold you like that, to whisper those filthy praises in your ear so you clench down on him?
Footsteps, boots on the metal grate, and a low chuckle.
You yank your hand free, but it’s too late.
“Don’t stop on my account, Дорогая.” He murmurs, and you back against the wall with a shuddering little gasp, skin on fire as Nikolai couches over you, ready to eat you whole. “I was only gone for a few minutes- did you miss me that much?”
The utter confidence in his voice, the knowledge that you were thinking of him, has wetness ooze between your thighs as you try to find your voice. It’s no use, because Nik swoops down against your lips, humming in satisfaction as you ease against him with a little whine, slowly reaching for him until you drag him down onto the cot with you. Surrendering at last.
Hours later, his seed dripping between your thighs, you doze on his chest while he smokes. Exhausted, entirely worn out from the number of orgasms he’s wrung from you, lulled to sleep by his calming heartbeat under your ear.
It’s the first night of many. Like a dam collapsed, Nik releases the full tidal wave of his desire onto you, never missing a chance to haul you to him, to bend you over, to sit you on his cock as you groan and leak around the stretch of him inside you. You realize far too late just how much Nik has been holding back, his hunger for you as boundless as your desire to please him, to stay.
He has you there in the chopper on the cot that can barely hold the weight of his thrusts, back in his bedroom where you collapse face first into the pillows. He eats you out slow and luxurious with you balanced on the kitchen counter, has you brace on his tool bench as he drapes himself against your spine and ruts into you from behind.
“Taking me so well, little fox.” He purrs in your ear, nimble fingers working at your clit as you hiccup and mewl for it. “So tight. Made for my cock, hm? Твоё тело сводит меня с ума. Fuck.”
Nik is an unstoppable force, with stamina you struggle to match. He keeps you in his bed as long as he is able, staving off his orgasm if only to prolong yours, trying to draw as many as he can from you even when your hand smacks at the headboard, trying to tap out.
“Just one more.” He growls as he tries to fuck you through the mattress, glued to your back so the heat of his frame, the swell of his cock inside you is the only thing you can feel. You’re teary eyed, gasping, the lewd squeal as he thrusts into you filling the quiet of the bedroom. Your eyes roll back just as he nails that perfect bundle of serves inside you, voice caught on a choked sort of whimper. “Just one more and then we can take a break, darling.”
You sprawl against the sheets, exhausted as he lounges bare by the window, a whisp of smoke curling from his cigarette before returning to you once more, spooning you and slipping back inside the sloppy mess of your well-used cunt.
“Good girl.” He tells you again when you moan breathlessly, hand cupping your jaw and turning you to him so he can kiss the gasp from your parted lips. You clench down on him at the words, and he hisses a sound of pleasure against the corner of your mouth. “All mine. My girl.”
“Yours.” You whisper hoarsely, as if there were any other answer.
In the come-down he gathers you to him, kisses the tears of overwhelm from your eyes and holds you as you shiver in the aftermath of your orgasm, feeling worn to the bone in only the best of ways. Cum splatters the inside of your thighs, and Nik idly scoops it onto his fingers and back inside, purring endearments between presses of his lips to your face.
Comforting, gentle when you need it, but demanding, forcing you to surpass beyond what you think yourself capable of if only to see the glimmer of pride in his eyes. When you fail, deliverance is swift as it’s always been, but now it’s different.
“I told you no touching.” He growls, forcing you to look at him as his thumb circles roughly over your clit. He’d caught you masturbating in your room, thinking the house was empty, that he wouldn’t catch you. “You want to touch yourself, you come to me, sweet thing. I’ll take care of you, I always do, don’t I?”
“Yes, yes-” You pant, bucking your hips, desperate, aching without the fullness of him, but Nik pulls away. “Wait. P-please-”
“Need to learn your lesson, little fox.” He soothes, pressing a kiss into your hair even as you whine, trying to buck up and grind against him in a vain search for friction. “Make sure it sticks, Да?”
Yet even as you obey, keep your hands to yourself just as you promised, Nik delights in working you up and pulling away at the last minute. He corners you, slips his hand beneath your waistband and soaks his fingers in your leaking cunt until you moan and mewl for him, then withdraws if only to smirk and suck the taste from them. For days he teases you, edges you until a hiccup threatens in your throat, makes sure you’ve learned your lesson that you are his, and then pulls away to let the reminder sink in. You can’t stand it, go mad with need, find yourself close to humping his knee if only to get some sort of relief.
When he finally does let you come days later, you howl into his flesh, biting down into his skin until he shudders, groans against you and spills inside your clenching cunt.
“My sweet girl.” He murmurs, stroking your face as he cuddles you afterwards. “Я не могу без тебя жить.”
You smile, nuzzle into the warmth of him, knowing he has you, he always will. You can’t forget, not with the things he growls against you as he makes love to you, reminding you that you belong to him. Soft in his room, you lay with him, fold into him as a beacon of safety and trust, know that he will never hurt you, will keep you safe, that this will always be your home.
In front of others you’re his partner, his accomplice, the apprentice he found like a diamond in the rough and had polished into a perfect blade. Deadly, clever, keen-eyed and watchful of all threats. Nik tells Price you don’t play well with others when Price tries to introduce his own protege, and when Gaz offers his hand in greeting you make no motion to return it until Nik grazes a thumb against the side of your throat as if tugging an invisible collar there.
“Careful.” He warns the sergeant. “She bites.”
In private he calls you all his endearments in purring Russian. Ангел, Прелесть, Огонёк. Angel, precious, little fire, the object of his desire. You're his girl, his sweet, fierce little sweetheart, the thing he taught to eat out of the palm of his hand while keeping your wild, dangerous nature.
You're his only family, his beloved little fox he managed to domesticate, the thing that still will bite him given the chance, but likes to curl up in his lap and yawn like a housecat. You're his obsession, his partner, his apprentice. If anything else, you're his weakness.
“Я тебя никому не отдам.” He swears to you, voice a low, deep rumble as he strokes your face, feeling your sleeping breaths fan across his palm.
“I will never give you to someone else.”
You dream of the first day you met him. Feral, scared, hungry and starved and inside- looking so desperately for somewhere safe to call home.
Now, years later, you know. Generous though Nik was, it was this that he had hoped for in the beginning- with you as his partner, his protege, but at the end of the day sleeping in his bed, worn and exhausted from the effects of his desire. Dangerous, feral, useful, but in the end tamed just as he’d envisioned.
And you, younger than him by years and foolish as you were, had gone blindly into the snare.
Nik had never given you any reason to regret it.
Russian Translations (Native Russian speakers feel free to leave a comment of correction)
Дворянство - Russian nobility
Шучу - I’m joking
Лисёнок. - Little fox
Дорогая - Darling
Твоё тело сводит меня с ума - Your body drives me crazy
Да - Yes
Я не могу без тебя жить - I can’t live without you
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