17 for helnik?? <3
fleurdufeu asked: 63 for helnik?
Anonymous asked: Uhm so if you still accept prompt requests (damn these time differences, my sorry european ass didnt see the prompt post till now), could you do #43 for helnik pls: “You have no idea how much I want you right now.” 💙
17. “I can’t sleep, can I stay here?”
43. “You have no idea how much I want you right now.”
63. “I am home.”
The distant whine of Spitfires and Lancaster bombers in the sky, heading across the Channel as they do every night to tangle with the Luftwaffe, has become akin to a soothing lullaby. How else would they sleep, Nina thinks, except to this strange howl that is almost comforting, the promise that they have a better-than-even chance of not dying in their beds tonight. Not when it's October 1943, and the world has been coming apart at the seams for almost four years.
That is not to say that she isn't unbelievably lucky to be here. She is. She knows full well the horror that is unfolding back home in Leningrad right now, at least when news manages to make it out from behind the siege lines. She is stationed in London as a member of Soviet intelligence, and since the British and the Russians are, of course, allies, she has been welcomed in particularly by the deputy head of MI6's Section Five, Harold Russell "Kim" Philby. Nina is responsible for running a covert network of informants across Europe, trying to keep Westminster apprised on how the Soviets are holding out on the Eastern Front, and other such responsibilities. It's good for a tiny apartment in the Blitz-battered East End, a more-or-less guarantee that she will get to eat once a day, and an utterly obnoxious tall blond Norwegian roommate. Matthias Helvar.
Matthias is, of course, also a spy, and the two of them didn't break protocol and tell each other their real names until after they had already been stationed here for almost eighteen months. His country is presently occupied by the Nazis and run by a man whose name will become synonymous with "craven collaborationist": Vidkun Quisling. Matthias himself runs a ring of Scandinavian informants and tries to recruit sympathizers inside Norway to join the anti-Nazi resistance. Since it would be improper and attention-grabbing for a young couple, especially a young foreign couple, to live here together otherwise, he and Nina are posing as husband and wife. Mr. and Mrs. Trassel.
The furniture on the table rocks as a particularly heavy Lancaster rumbles overhead. Nina twiddles the dial on the radio and tries to concentrate on copying down the transmission on her one-time pad. It will make its way via a byzantine network of sympathizers to the Soviet high command in Moscow -- some things that the British know Nina knows, and some things they don't. That is how this works.
Another boom out there in the darkness. She grimaces, struggling to still her shaking hand, lights a candle since the power is at best unreliable, and finishes her work. Then she gets up, hides everything away, and goes upstairs. Climbs onto her narrow bed, pulls up the scanty covers, and tries to sleep. She can't.
After almost two hours of tossing and turning, Nina gives up. Climbs out of bed, crosses the creaky hallway, and knocks. Quietly, though she doesn't think he's asleep either, she whispers, "Can I come in?"
A pause. Then. "Yes. Of course."
Nina bites her lip and enters Matthias's equally small garret of a room. He's sitting up on his bed, trying to read a cheap paperback book, but he puts it aside at the sight of her. "Is everything all right?"
"I can't sleep," Nina says. "Can I stay here?"
Matthias blinks owlishly. No matter how good they have gotten at playing an ordinary married couple to their neighbors' eyes, they've been careful -- perhaps a little too careful -- at maintaining private boundaries. Not that anyone would be surprised if they didn't. They're young and otherwise unattached, it's war and everyone is clinging onto whoever they can find, and it's not like Nina isn't interested. Truly, Matthias has no idea (or maybe he does, and is pretending otherwise) how much she wants him right now. Just to hold her, if nothing else. To keep her close in the dark, and tell her that this will end.
He moves aside, and she squirms into his bed. He's large enough that there's not really room in it for him, much less her, but he gallantly does not protest when she edges onto his lap. He wraps his arms around her and rests his chin on her hair, and Nina lets loose a shuddering sigh, tracing her fingers on his broad chest. His breath catches, and he gulps. She looks up, and their eyes meet.
Slowly, ever so slowly, as if he is holding something fragile and perfect and lovely in his hands, as if he can't believe it's there and has to take care not to frighten it, Matthias says, "Nina...?"
"Shh," she whispers. "Shh. Just kiss me."
For once, for bloody once, he does as told without arguing. He bends his head, as she fists her hands in his rough blond hair and pulls his mouth to hers. They kiss and kiss in almost-silence, in their lonely attic kingdom in the middle of a broken world and shivering city, on a long dark night that seems, in more ways than one, as if it will never end. And yet, be all that as it may, much as her heart still lies in Russia and always will, Nina Zenik is not unhappy.
Don't you want to go home? he asked her, the other day. She knew the answer, but did not say it. Yet now, she does, and it is not London that she means. Not a place, but a person.
I am home.
