sergei demidoff

SERGEI DEMIDOFF | 27 | HUMAN | STRAIGHT Works as a mechanic down in the Phleg. Has a prosthetic left leg from the knee down due to a battle with Osteosarcoma. Doctors have assured him he is now cancer free. Has a dependence on pain killers (morphine) and has been known to drink too much. Used to be a member of the Russian Armed Forces before he was sick. "open hand or closed fist would be fine, blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine" - Hozier

[sergeidemidoff-blog]

the ink under my skin

[wolfthecahar]

Rhowan could hear the male’s heartbeat. It was fast and the smells coming from him told Rhowan that this male hadn’t tripped for no reason. He tripped because he was running from somewhere. From something. But the didn’t need to know what language the male was speaking to figure out what he was talking about. 

“My apologies, I don’t speak… Russian?” He half affirmed, half asked. “But I’ll take it…” His voice was barely above a whisper as he walked closer to the other and gave him some support to stand. It took him little to no effort to get the guy up again and support his weight easily. “… You received a box with a beating heart inside?” He asked lightly, looking around to check if they were not dragging any unnecessary attention.

[sergeidemidoff-blog]

Sergei shot the man a surprised look. He knew about the heart? Was he not the only one to receive a box like that? “Yes,” he responded, a little breathless after his fall, taking the other male’s offer for help and moving to stand. Sergei patted his pants legs, brushing off his shirt, and tried not to wince when he extended his leg, stretching it out until the knee of his prosthetic clicked back into place. “There is box with heart inside. Did you get same thing? How do you know this?”

If there was someone out there handing out boxes filled with bleeding, beating hearts, there must be something about it in the news. At least the police must be aware of this. Sergei’s head couldn’t stop reeling. There were too many things happening to him lately. He was thinking of taking a few days off from work now, and possibly find a new apartment now that this one was tainted by the memory of a bleeding, beating heart.

[sergeidemidoff-blog]

the ink under my skin

[hanarocksong-blog]

“Um…” Hana said slowly, a little lost when he started speaking…was it Polish?  Russian?  Something Eastern European, she gathered.  She hoped he wasn’t a tourist.  Hana had been visiting Sumner long enough to know the fate of many tourists - she didn’t agree with or like the idea, but at the same time nothing was really fair in life, was it?  People died all the time.

Fortunately, the man seemed to be getting back on his feet, but Hana still kept her hands out as she rose from her crouch, somewhat touching him but just to make sure he was steady.  “You had quite the fall,” she commented blandly, looking at his face and then checking him over to make sure he wasn’t bleeding or anything.  

When he spoke English and brought up the hearts, Hana sighed.  “Oh.  Yeah.  This has not been your day, has it?” She said, biting her lip in sympathy.  So it was happening to more than just her relatives.  That was…well it wasn’t exactly comforting.  “I’m sorry. I’m new here, but my relatives told me about…that…heart thing.”  She reached out, rubbing his arm.  Sumner was a lot like the island - friendliness were normal for Hana, even to strangers.  She didn’t even consider that maybe he wasn’t ready to be touched.  “Do you want…help?  My cousin works in security, she could maybe take the heart for you…”   She’d noticed posters around the town, one for a Bell Investigations and another for someplace called ‘Mal Ojo’ neither of which Hana recognized but she was sure Song Security could help.  She didn’t really want to be a part of that, though.  Too weird, too frightening. 

“My name’s Hana, by the way.”  Her eyes drifted down to his legs.  She hadn’t missed the strangeness in his gait, the clicking sound that wasn’t flesh and bone.  Her first guess was a prosthetic; after touching the man, Hana just felt sure he was a human. “Maybe you should take a breather, sit and rest for a bit.  God, you poor thing.” 

[sergeidemidoff-blog]

He wasn’t sure why things shocked him anymore, but when she seemed so nonchalant about the whole still beating heart thing, that shocked him. Not enough to make him cringe or jump  back, not that kind of shock, but it definitely unsettled him. She seemed sympathetic enough, and even offered to help, murmuring words of compassion. Maybe it was because he just received a heart in a box, or maybe it was because he was being overly paranoid, but he found it difficult to believe her emotion. Was it all pretend? Was it all fake? Was she even human and did that even matter?

“Take it,” he didn’t want the heart there. He didn’t want to see it when he went back to his apartment. He wanted every trace of it gone, he wanted the memory of it wiped away, never to be remembered. Sergei reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a bottle of pills. He shook it -- it needed a refill -- and popped two of the small white pills into his mouth, swallowing them dry. “Sergei,” he groaned as he straightened out his leg again. “I would be saying it is nice meeting you, but…” he swept her a sideways glance, “it is not very nice circumstance.” He had learned that word recently. Some fancy looking fellow came into the garage, spouting out about how he couldn’t comprehend his current circumstance. Sergei wasn’t sure why, but that word kind of stuck with him ever since.

Sergei moved over to a snow covered bench and brushed some of the powdery substance onto the ground. “Why is these things happening,” he held his head in his hands. Too many horrible things were happening in such a short span of time.

[sergeidemidoff-blog]

the ink under my skin

[hanarocksong-blog]

Hana had arrived in Sumner at the tail-end of the whole weird…hearts…thing.  She’d only found out about it from her relatives; and after some curious discussions over the dinner table it was mostly decided, in true gargoyle form, that what this town needed was better security, stricter vigilance, stronger rules.  The usual.  Hana had nothing really to contribute to the conversation, other than listening to her Sumnerite relatives and deferring to their opinions.  Whatever was going on, it was gruesome.  Hana contributed a few half-ass jokes about her arrival being the advent of these awful heart gifts, and left it at that.

Today, she was out running some errands for her Uncle, trying her damndest to successfully navigate the ice and snow.  The boots she’d borrowed from Valerie felt both sturdy and treacherous at the same time, and Hana spent most of her walk looking down as she carefully maneuvered, afraid of falling on her butt like some snow newbie.  

Hana was concentrating so hard that she was more than a little alarmed to see a man across the street.  He wasn’t just running - he was tearing a strip through the snow, bolting as if he barely even noticed the wet stuff even as his feet seemed to clumsily kick it up.  But even he didn’t last long on his feet.

“Oh - oh no no–!”  Hana held up her hand, not like it did anything to prevent the poor man from crashing forward.  Unthinking, she was already halfway over, lowering herself into a crouch to hover her arms around the man in concern.

“Are you okay??” Hana asked, her tone shaky and somewhat loud with alarm for his welfare.  “Sir?”  She looked around, trying to find another passerby to help, but the street was currently bare.  “Can you sit up, sir?”

[sergeidemidoff-blog]

Sit up? The idea sounded absurd in his head. He couldn’t comprehend the meaning behind those words because right now, he was too bewildered to understand she was speaking English. His mother tongue of Russian flowed through his thoughts and left his lips as he spoke, “Я в порядке.” But he wasn’t fine. He wouldn’t be fine for a very long time. There was only so much he could take. Finding out about the existence of supernatural beings was one thing, but now to have a still beating heart delivered at his home, that was too much. Who sent it to him? Who did the heart belong to? Was it his brother’s? Was it a coworker? Was it someone he knew or was it a stranger? Was this the work of some evil supernatural being or was it the work of some cruel human?

“Я в порядке,” he repeated again as he pushed himself back onto his feet. The prosthetic of his knee tweaked and pain blossomed up his left thigh. After he took a few slow breaths he spoke again, “I am fine.” Sergei looked over at the woman who came to help him. He wondered if she knew about the heart, if she had placed it there. If she knew about supernatural beings or if she was naive like he was. He wondered if he was allowed to talk about these things or if he should keep his mouth shut. He had lived his entire life unaware of everything, barely missing, thinking it was just a trick of the light or he was too tired, or it was because he was mixing painkillers and alcohol. “There…” he didn’t want to be alone in this. He wanted his brother here. Mikhail was always so logical. He would know what to do and what to say. He wanted Mila here. She was always incredibly compassionate and knew how to calm him down, bring him back whenever he was on a bender. “There is heart… Someone left … It is still beating…” He probably sounded insane, but he had to get it out, he couldn’t keep it in.

[sergeidemidoff-blog]

the ink under my skin

[wolfthecahar]

Rhowan had started to use his jogging as an excuse to get to know the town better. One week he’d run covering an area only to cover another area the next week. And just like that he’d make sure he knew Sumner like the back of his hand. He just wasn’t expecting to see the male scrambling out of a building as if he had the devil himself trying to grab him by the pants. And right in that moment, the image of the box and the heart were wiped from his mind. The scene had been repeating over and over again even after he had gone back home and cleaned everything. And the words seemed to be printed all over his brain.

“Are you alright?” He asked going over he male and smelling the blood from the wounds. “What happened?” His voice was as calm, soothing and reassuring as it could get after the scene he had just witnessed. 

[sergeidemidoff-blog]

He couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t focus on what was happening right now because he kept thinking back on the bloodied box he left on his kitchen table. No doubt the blood would be seeping out and onto the table, dripping onto the tiled floor of his kitchen. He left his front door open in his rush to escape that room. Maybe his neighbor would go inside and see the box, see the heart there, torn open and caked with drying blood.

Sergei blinked the stars out from his eyes and moved to stand, pushing himself up, shoulder and knee throbbing in pain, his metal jointed prosthetic clicking as he stretched it out. What could he say? What was there to say? He couldn’t tell this stranger that there was a box filled with blood on his kitchen table. He couldn’t say that, but what was there to say? “My leg,” he exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand over his face roughly before drawing in a shaky breath, “I tripped.” Obviously he had tripped, and Sergei felt dumb for saying it, but he didn’t know what else to do. “There was a box… коробка с сердцем внутри…”

[sergeidemidoff-blog]

the ink under my skin

Sergei had been investing so much of his time at the garage recently, that he only really went home to shower and sleep. Finding out about the existence of supernaturals was incredibly confusing and he was still trying to wrap his head around it. Everywhere he went, he wondered if the mother and child he was looking at were blood drinking vampires in disguise, or maybe merpeople. He wondered if the man with the expensive car had earned his money through normal business means, or if it was from hundreds of years of saving. The thoughts sometimes kept him up at night, even more than the nightmares of war and pounding flesh until it turned to putty underneath his hands. He was a monster too.

Sergei walked up the stairs to his apartment, his neighbor showed up just as Sergei was about to unlock his door. “Hey, someone left this outside for you,” she grinned at him, red lipstick framing her mouth, “Someone’s got a secret admirer.” Sergei eyed the velvet looking heart shaped box and took it from her. “Thanks,” he tucked it under his arm and went inside his apartment.

Naturally, he wondered who it could be from. His first thought was Bellamy, but things had been so rocky between them lately that he didn’t think it would be from her. Not to mention, she didn’t seem like the type to give a box of chocolates. It could be from his coworkers. They had signed him up for that Valentine’s Day matchmaking thing, so it could be from them. After taking a shower, Sergei sat down at the kitchen table and opened up the box. He picked up the card and read the poem on the back. His brows furrowed together, heart beating louder in his ears as he read each line slowly. This was no box of chocolates, and it was then that he realized the heartbeat pounding his his ears, wasn’t coming from his own heart. It was coming from the heart in the box.

He felt bile rising up his throat, the chair scraped against the tile as he rushed over to the kitchen sink where he gagged and choked for air. The scent of coppery blood filled his nose, and the sound of that heart beating filled the entire room. What was this? This had to be magic. It couldn’t be real. Sergei ran out of his apartment building and onto the street. He pounded the pavement, running blind, not knowing where he was going but knowing he just couldn’t be in that apartment anymore. He needed answers but didn’t know what questions to ask. He needed someone to help put the pieces together because he couldn’t figure it out for himself. His left leg gave out, the metal joint locking in the cold and it sent him tumbling forward hard. He felt the concrete scrape away at the skin of his leg and shoulder, pain blooming as blood rushed to the surface. Blood like the blood in that box.

“Open your lips and scream, for this is not a dream, or laugh if that’s your choice -- I’ll know you’re my Valentine by the blood on your skin, red like wine.”

[milarusalka-blog]

guess i’ll see you in hell | mila&sergei

Aisles stacked with rows upon rows of food. Overly sweet cereals with marshmallows and chocolate inside them, bright and colorful graphics of rabbits and leprechauns. Sergei walked among them, staring at the images, confused at their names and grabbed the simplest looking one. He just wanted something to snack on and hold him over when he didn’t feel like cooking a meal for himself. He rarely cooked at all unless he was expecting company. It seemed like a waste of time to make something only for himself, so he always ate food out, and his fridge was almost always bare, having only a few things like milk and cheese and pickled eggs. But tonight, a few of his coworkers said they were going to stop by, and Sergei had given them cheese and pickled eggs before, but they did not like it. He moved away from the cereal aisles to head toward the aisle full of chips.

Keep reading

[sergeidemidoff-blog]

Thank you for participating in Skyler’s and Sienna’s Match-making event! We have discovered your one true love to be: Valerie. Come drop by the Crescent Café on Feb 14th to meet your new valentine!

“I did not… participate in… I am going to be killing my coworkers. They keep signing me up for глупо дерьмо.”

[thisbrutalbelle]

         “Oh,” Bellamy let out when he was done. Apparently Iann had not exactly shared her personal reason so much as he explained a generalised reason. She was glad, it had seemed shocking Iann would so to know he hadn’t definitely seemed more in character.  What he said didn’t seem like enough to have ever made Bellamy okay with finding out she was in a town of monsters as a human. It wasn’t like any other shock unless he’d suddenly discovered Santa was real or something. There was just nothing that compared to the shattering of a belief system. “Well that was nice of him, I mean, that’s all it took?” she asked, pushing some of her hair behind her ear. “So now you’re like…what? Okay I lied?”

[sergeidemidoff-blog]

“No,” he responded instantly. “No.I am not okay that you lied. I just… understand why you did it.” He let out a breath and ran a hand over his face, rubbing roughly at his eyes before letting his hand fall heavily on the table. “I want to still be friends, but… if you are having anything else you want to say to me… tell me now.” He wasn’t sure if he could be friends with her right now though. He wanted to try going through his life for a little bit without her in it. See if he notices anything now that his eyes have been opened up to the world of supernatural creatures. He would probably use some of her pointers, and try to find out if any of his coworkers were… vampires or werewolves.

[thisbrutalbelle]

           “I mean, most people I know aren’t vampires, most people I know are humans or werewolves or witches but that just could be because I don’t really get on well with other vampires,” Bellamy explained. It probably didn’t help though that she listed two other creatures in her most known species list. Sergei probably didn’t want to think about the mass amount of werewolves or witches in the town. “You could ask people if you want or…take not of things, I mean, I’m cold, if you shook my hand and put your index finger on my wrist their wouldn’t be a pulse, from my experience werewolves are warmer. For the most part though I suck at telling who is what until they straight up tell me. Obviously humans who don’t know are pretty…obvious to find,” she finished awkwardly, not intending to make him sound dumb or anything like it.

          When he mentioned Iann explaining why she lied though she became a little annoyed that Iann would just share something so person, something that was her business to share with someone else. “What did he tell you?” Bellamy said, finding it hard to keep the anger from her tone. It was obvious she wasn’t made at him though as she shook her head and muttered “fuckin’, Iann, you shitty burro.”

[sergeidemidoff-blog]

When she mentioned other creatures like werewolves and witches, his mind instantly went back to a run he had along the beach. He had met a woman there, and for a moment there, he had he had seen a tail in the water. If he had stayed longer, if he had talked to her more, he could have known sooner. Or maybe it was just a trick of the light that made him think he saw a tail. Though, he was thrown from his thoughts at the sudden angry tone in her voice. Sergei’s brows furrowed together as he responded, “He told me that finding this was no different than finding something else…” he inhaled deeply as he tried to find the right words in English. He felt he had been getting better at speaking, but sometimes he still struggled, especially for longer sentences like this. “That this is a shock and I have been having experience… of a shock in the past and this is same but different. He also was telling me how … some people,” he didn’t want to use the word supernatural creature, “are being coming to this town as a safe place, and since that is being same reason I am here, I am understanding.”

[thisbrutalbelle]

        She could hear his heart and his steps but his breath was more difficult with the door in the way. Once it was open she could but didn’t detect anything unusual. Bella was not an old vampire and certainly not a trained vampire so she really could only tell when someone’s heart was beating exceptionally fast or exceptionally slow since those came with things like fear and blood loss, dramatic things. Nerves were not so easily detectable to someone with her lack of experience.

         “Hey, Sergei,” she answered, walking inside. They were here to talk and yet talking seemed the hardest thing to do. It was like there was throw up in her throat and when she opened her mouth all she could feel was like it could come out at any second. It wouldn’t but that was how it felt as she wandered behind him to the table where they had once eaten together and her feet had brushed his false leg beneath his pants. Bella pulled out the chair opposite and sat down. For a moment she was silent, thinking perhaps she should let him speak but in reality he was probably too flustered to know how to begin so she finally decided to. “What questions have been going on in your head?” she asked, hoping she could answer at least some.

[sergeidemidoff-blog]

For someone who had just found out about the existence of supernatural creatures, he was surprisingly not as curious as he probably should be. Iann had helped him through a majority of his concerns, right now, Sergei’s main concern was sorting out this thing with Bellamy. He didn’t exactly consider himself in a relationship with her, but they had been getting close, and to him at least, they were friends who happened to be attracted to each other. Things had changed though, ever since that night. Sergei had learned that Bellamy was a vampire, she’d been hiding this big secret from him, and she found out that he wasn’t exactly using his painkillers as they were intended to be used.

“Mostly,” he started after clearing his throat, nerves causing his throat to feel thick and constricted, “Mostly I have been thinking about who else I am knowing that could be vampire, or… or something else.” The corners of his lips turned up into a forced, awkward smile before falling back into a straight line. “I have been thinking… and I have been talking to your friend… Iann, and I understand why you did not tell me.” He had his own secrets, he couldn’t blame her for having her own.

[thisbrutalbelle]

[ TEXT ]: Okay, I’ll be there soon.

        Bella sighed, she really really did not want to have this discussion with Sergei. Especially with so many things having happened between when he’d showed her his leg and now. She’d met Isaiah for starters and discovered he had a pill addiction, the lie was just the biggest thing and all the other things around it were like the broken glass people stepped on as they looked at the building that had been blown up. Still whether or not she wanted to have the discussion was irrelevant, it had to be done.

         When Bellamy pulled up she looked…well she looked different. This wasn’t a discussion she was going to have wearing only a coat and some lingerie. No, she had merely natural coloured make-up, skinny jeans, sneakers and a singlet. Her hair was out and not styled, just hanging down over her shoulders and chest. There definitely wasn’t about to be any kind of manipulation done based on her looking too sexual, hell the singlet was black and she was wearing a bra for once in her life. A few moments and she was up at his door, knocking and waiting to deal with the worst.

[sergeidemidoff-blog]

It would be a lie if he said he wasn’t anxious. This wasn’t a situation he ever thought he’d be in and yet there he was, sitting on his grungy couch, watching the static signal of an American Football game, waiting for her. He wanted to drink but he didn’t. He needed a clear head right now, didn’t want a repeat of their last attempted conversation when it was all heated emotions and inebriation.

When he heard the door, he took his time getting up, wondering as he walked if she could hear him approaching. If she could hear the sound of his heart, the rapid beating in his chest, and if she could hear him trying to keep his breathing calm. “Hello,” he greeted simply, noting the change in her appearance. She looked simpler today. Normal. Gone was the bright red lipstick and seductive attire. Sergei shut the door behind her and padded toward the kitchen table, pulling out a chair and easing himself into it.

[thisbrutalbelle]

[ TEXT ]: It hurts that much? I mean, I presumed you’d had the leg a while. [ TEXT ]: Not publicly. You did to me, I’ve never seen you like that. [ TEXT ]: Over text or should we meet?

[sergeidemidoff-blog]

[TEXT] You can come to my place.

[sergeidemidoff-blog]

[thisbrutalbelle]

[ TEXT ]: No explanation or do I not deserve one for lying? [ TEXT ]: Fine. You know, swimming, drinking, eating. Casual and nice.

[sergeidemidoff-blog]

[TEXT] I take it for my leg...maybe I took too much. [TEXT] I am hoping I did not make too much of scene... [TEXT] ...but you did lie...and I do still want to talk...

[thisbrutalbelle]

[ TEXT ]: You seemed pretty high the other day.

[sergeidemidoff-blog]

[TEXT] Okay.. [TEXT] How was the rest of the party?...

[sergeidemidoff-blog]

[ TEXT ]: How are you feeling?

[TEXT] I am well…

[ashnadir]

sight unseen || sergei & iann

[ashnadir]

Iann looked at Sergei for a long time.  Credit where credit was due: and for all his fretfulness, Sergei was handling this with aplomb.  Of course, maybe he was just in shock, and the tantrums might come later.  Who knew.  Iann did admire his calm under pressure though, and it made Iann then wonder where and how Sergei learned to cope like this.  

“I don’t know your past,” Iann started.  “But was there ever a time in your life where you thought something was a certain way, only to find out it wasn’t that way at all? Like…oh I don’t know.  That your parents or guardians were just fucked-up people with weaknesses.  Or that hard work and a positive attitude isn’t all you need to succeed in life.  And with the epiphany there was no going back, hm? Well,” Iann nodded his chin towards some of the vampires and sirens on the beach, heading to the water, the sirens’ tails glimmering the moment the creatures hit the surf.  

“This is one of those moments.  The world now isn’t the world you thought it was.  Again.  But you’re still here, hm?  And you still have your job, your friends…nothing’s actually crumbling around you.”  Other than his internal mindset.  Which could sometimes be a shake-up harder to accept than an earthquake.  It all depended on the person, and Iann was looking at Sergei now, curious to see how he’d swallow that.  Iann added, tentatively,  “I can help you.”

[sergeidemidoff-blog]

While sober, Sergei handled stress and shock relatively well. He internalized it, kept it inside of him, tearing him apart while remaining calm on the surface. While in the military, he couldn’t very well burst into tears or have a full on reaction when someone shot at him, or when some unruly civilian threatened him. He had to keep his composure, and so he did. But when he was drunk, or inebriated, he couldn’t contain himself. He let everything go in a flurry of violence, releasing every pent up thing he had kept inside of him. It was the reason why he had killed his sister’s husband. In a fit of uncontrollable drunken rage, he had beat that man until his blood burst and his bones broke. It wasn’t very healthy.

He tried to think about Iann’s words. Tried to think of a time when something came up, unexpected like this. When he found out that Viktor was abusing his sister, Sergei had flown off the handle. Mikhail had to hold him back, even Mila tried to stop him. They separated and he thought Mila was safe, until one day she disappeared and Sergei knew it was all Viktor’s doing. He had thought Mila would be happy in her marriage, but turns out that marriage destroyed their family. Mila was missing, Viktor was dead, and Sergei ran away. He still lived, attempted to move on, still broken inside from the loss of everything he once held dear. “How you can help me?” Strange, how he used to find Iann annoying and now he was clinging to the other male’s words for comfort.