Title: Soloveiko has landed.
Pairing: Maks/Vova
Word Count: 1600
Chapter: 2
Something pushes him forward without him thinking about it - a driving need, one hand pressed against the flat of the door, his heart pounding somewhere outside his chest.
Maksym knows exactly what he will find, who he will find - but the nerves still linger, questions drifting around his head. What if it’s all different somehow? What if those two weeks of absence have stretched on, endless - magnifying into something different until he is no longer in lockstep with Vova, instead just ever so slightly behind? He couldn’t bear it; to not know, to be outside of it all, to be locked away from him. He takes a breath in and pushes the door open, stepping over the threshold and letting the heavy wooden door thunk shut softly behind him. It’s a familiar room, one he’s spent hours in over the last two years - teaching self-defence as the dark hours of the night slip by unremarked upon.
He’s spent more time than he cares to think about offering out a hand to pull Volodymyr to his feet, his skin slick with sweat, waiting for those dark eyes on him, a nod before they go again; all the anger that drains away with each blow until he’s too tired to fight much more. He thinks about those moments often; after all the anger, all the rage that drives Volodymyr has gone, leaving just his softness as he leans against Maksym’s shoulder, too tired to move, his voice a low, scratched hum.
Maksym knows, in all that silence, is everything that Volodymyr would never let anyone else see. His anger, righteous and raw - but all his hurt too, reflected back at him in bleeding knuckles, burning muscles, purple-black bruises that take a little too long to fade. He'd never let anyone else see the quiet abyss that engulfs him when he's too drained to do anything but sit in silence, too weary to talk. Maksym takes these particular moments and stores them away, knowing that to be trusted so much is the best treasure he could ever be gifted, especially from a man who gives so much of himself to others. This tiny shard that is his, and his alone, even if comes bracketed by pain, it is not to be shared by anyone else.
Toeing off his boots by the door, his every movement is utterly noiseless, a stealthiness honed to its finest point through years of training. Sometimes, Vova asks with a laugh where he learned all this, and he’s never quite said - the moment never quite right. He takes a breath in, and all the nerves, the worry from before; it flickers, sparks again. He steps forward, grasping and then finding a specific kind of ease in this space, something that has been missing for the last fortnight. He knows this place, this building, every nook and cranny, every corner. He knows where an assassin might choose to hide, he knows how they would try to gain entrance. He knows where he needs to take Vova if it ever comes to that, a path that his mind only ventures down when night crawls in and his heart feels too large in his ribcage.
Maksym knows the man inside this room, the one around whom they all revolve, but he especially, on whom everything depends - the freedom of the free world, the continuation of their beloved Ukraine. It’s a weight he carries with grace, that leaves Maksym speechless often, even awestruck occasionally - a steady, quiet balancing act, a burden that he knows would break anyone else.
His eyes find Volodymyr at the opposite side of the gym, locked in one sided combat with a punching bag as it swings from the ceiling, the chain clanking in a morose fashion as the noise echoes. The lights are dim - hardly there, softer somehow than the harsh, grim fluorescents of the situation room or the wide windows of his office where the light streams in without pause, drawing shadows onto his face. Maks watches in silence for a while; struck by just how singular Volodymyr’s focus is, the set of his jaw is something that looks like anger, that rage that comes to the surface, swallowed down during the day. He is utterly unaware of his surroundings, focused instead on his driving anger, his relentless drive forward, unthinking of anything else; his whole world narrowed to the impact of bare knuckles against the target; again and again.
Maksym watches and he needs to know, almost desperately now - he needs to know that Volodymyr knows what to do if he is not there - what to do with all that anger, all that singular focus. The thought shudders inside his brain, filling him with a sudden, specific dread, cold and awful. He needs to know that Volodymyr knows what to do if there would ever be someone there to harm him, someone who would not think twice about causing him pain, about ripping his light from the world and leaving them all in darkness.
He moves until he is at Volodymyr’s back, then at his shoulder, still unknown, unrecognised in the dark. He longs for the other man to turn around, for that spell to break and a spark of recognition to bloom, just for a second - but it doesn’t. Maksym reaches forward, hooking an arm around Volodymyr's chest, a hand pressed over his mouth.
The world falls away, the concrete walls around them dissolving, the dim soft lighting fading out into something unspecific, intransient. None of it matters. Everything has narrowed to a few points, the thrum of a pulse, the press of a hand. It feels like an age - an epoch passes with Volodymyr pressed against him; unmoving, utterly frozen. He is close enough that Maksym hears, feels even the hitch of his breath, the shift that occurs in his stance, everything in him ready and willing to fight. That change alone eases a specific ache within Maksym’s chest. He does not let up, one hand still over Volodymyr’s mouth, the grip on him fierce; just enough for fight-or-flight.
And it’s Vova. Of course, of course it’s fight.
It always has been; from the very beginning.
Always will be; until the end.
They’ve learned this together, a macabre dance, and it loosens the tension inside of Maksym’s chest as Vova’s elbow connects just where it’s meant to, against his ribs; the power behind it is enough to take his breath away for a second, knowing it will leave a red mark beneath his shirt that will slowly blossom into a bruise. Volodymyr finds the same point again, lands another blow; twisting to get himself free of Maks’ grip, using every trick he knows.
“Coward.”
Vova’s voice is a snarl, something guttural, bitter in it and even though Maks knows it isn’t directed at him; it’s far too dark for Vova to see his face, it lodges inside his heart like a barb, twisting until it bleeds. The insult is directed instead at his unknown attacker who had come at him in the dark, from behind. As Vova finally gets free, Maksym barely avoids another punch, the fierce drive of it no less startling for all his knowledge of his President and how he fights. He concentrates, parries the blows, still not easy despite knowing instinctively where the next one will come from. He was the one to tell Volodymyr what would work best, where he needed to aim, to go for - where would give him the best chance of victory, and if not victory at least then escape; time, a grasped moment or two that might give him the chance to find a weapon, to get the upper hand.
Not this time.
They fight in near silence, away from the light, the only sound is their harsh, uneven breathing, just out of sync with one another.He knows which side Vova favours, and Maksym sidesteps him swiftly, pivoting behind. He hooks one leg around Vova’s knee and moves sharply for the side he knows is his weakest.
It sends Vova slamming into the mat with enough force to rip the breath from his lungs and there is barely a second’s pause before Maks grips him by the shoulders, pressing him into the mat, his grip hard enough to leave a mark. Vova's hands shoot up instantly, fingers digging hard into his biceps, his face taken over with a snarl of rage - the grace of it all gone now, moving to push back already - refusing to surrender. With his knees either side of Volodymyr’s thighs, his whole weight bearing down on the smaller man, Maksym is suddenly brought up short, in a way he hadn’t expected or ever anticipated. He is suddenly very aware of the fact that Volodymyr really is there, beneath him, his muscle, the broadness of his chest and the strength of his arms.
Something in Maksym’s heart quivers, glad that his face is still in shadow.
“Well done. You remembered what I taught you-” his voice is a low, rough rumble and the pressure in his grip eases - a thousand emotions flooding him, not least of all; there is pride, because of course, of course he remembered, of course he fought, of course, of course.
You will see our faces, not our backs.
“Next time, be quicker, better, sharper. Ukraine needs you.”
I need you.
In the quiet light, those gentle brown eyes look up at him. Still soft and questioning - trusting despite everything from the last few minutes, the last two years, and it feels like coming home.
“....Maks?”
