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"Third time's the charm, hm?" Ogata taunts, as he has known nothing else his entire life than to provoke, to incite, to madden.
Ogata supposes more sane men would beg for their pathetic lives when found with the barrel of a gun pressed hot to their temple. Ogata is so goddamn aware that the pathetic stretch of life behind him and the sordid path that looms beyond will never be worth enough to fall to his knees and beg.
He would sooner die by another man’s rifle than face the humiliation of groveling.
"There will be less mess to clean if you shoot here." His grin a newly whetted blade, careful to snuff even the potential flame of emotion from his left eye. Ogata adjusts the muzzle of Vasily's M1891 to fit sweetly behind his ear.
Near where the bullet entered Yuusaku's skull. He shivers at the thought.
Ogata views the piercing eyes of his enemy a suitable, if not luxurious, send off to hell. He allows himself the fleeting pleasure of gazing into Vasily's sharp glare, the unbeknownst star in more than a few of the fantasies fleshed quick in the loneliness of night, only to be released into Ogata's waiting palm. He resists reaching forward and teasing Vasily further, the need to rile the other man flaring hot like a waning curse in these final, precursory moments.
“I’m sure you’re eager to shoot your load . Do it .” Ogata sneers, fingers reaching to caress Vasily’s much larger hand, the sniper’s grasp settled firmly in Ogata’s hair.
Ogata refuses to shut his eyes to death’s face. He has habitually welcomed it with unwavering, bordering frenzied glee. He watches, just as he had watched the arching quiver of Asirpa’s bow before it had claimed his right eye. He watches with the starvation of a man dying, eager to savor whatever shall play across the stage of his killer’s face during the final performance of Ogata’s finite, sorry life.
He watches as he had watched the life drain from his own mother’s eyes, watches as he wished he could’ve his half-brother’s death.
Ogata anticipates witnessing a host of endless, exquisite emotion. Anger, hatred, relief, hesitation. Instead, the frozen landscape of Vasily’s glare burns bright with the unmistakable flare of resolution, with determination, with greed.
“It’s impolite to keep one waiting when they’ve been served on a silver platter, soldier. Don’t tell me this is your first ti-” Ogata grunts as the air is slammed from his lungs, startled by the weight of the other sniper pressing heavy against his chest.
Ogata glares petulantly at the discarded gun, now lying outside both their reach across the small room. He turns to bitch further at his assailant, growing weary of their trite game of cat and mouse.
Vasily grips his chin, forcing Ogata to meet his fevered gaze. He moves his free hand to the bashlyk swaddling the lower portion of his face. A renewed jolt of anticipation courses through Ogata at the prospect of witnessing his lasting cruelty up close.
The cloth is torn like a bandage and dropped, unceremonious, between them. The quickening of Ogata’s heart is almost painful in his chest, eyes gone wide at the mess of scar tissue at Vasily’s cheeks. He reaches up to trace the angry red flesh, mouth curving into something predatory at the shaking exhale of the Russian sniper’s breath.
“And here I thought you were pretty before....” Ogata whistles, fingers teasingly gentle. “But I’m sure you don’t see it that way, do you?” He questions, though truly seeks no answer.
Vasily retreats as if shot, one of his big hands forming a vice at Ogata’s wrists.
“If you wanted an apology for fucking up your face I’m afraid you won’t get one. It’s kind of nice though, isn’t it? No matter what you do or how far you’ll run, I’ll always be with you.” Ogata is giddy at the thought, sickeningly territorial over a man he’d never intended to know.
Even when he’s six feet under the frozen ground, Vasily will bear his scars eternal, inflicted by Japan’s most despicable wildcat.
Ogata catches the shift in Vasily’s intentions, can smell the sudden spike like fresh blood chumming frigid waters. He wonders what has set the Russian off, wonders which of the taunts and insults and general incentives that Ogata has thrown at him since he'd broken into the shitty, stuffy room Ogata has been lying low in had finally snared him.
He would have liked to ask, would have loved to know which insufferable straw had broken the Russian’s broad back, but he finds himself unable to think, much less speak.
Ogata, analytical, observant Ogata, has fucked up. In the ongoing canon of certainties Ogata knew would befall him, knew would sooner rather than later catch up, would beat him bloody into an unforgiving grave, Ogata has never even once assumed that Vasily would kiss him.
And Vasily was kissing him, kissing him so soft Ogata might've mistaken it for the brush of the other’s mouth is almost imperceptible past the deafening roar of Ogata’s still beating heart.
Vasily tightens his hold on Ogata’s wrists, other hand coming forth to better position Ogata’s face as the kiss deepens, warm tongue sliding easy past the surprised O of Ogata’s mouth.
Panic swells like wildfire in Ogata’s gut. He possesses reels of possibilities of what Vasily might do once he’d finally caught his prey, and yet Ogata hadn’t anticipated the other man taking his first kiss.
He is no virgin, had learnt far too young that flirtations and sexual favors were a simple way to gain favor with those who stood to advance Ogata’s own agenda. He’d fallen into any number of men’s beds, fumbled in back alleys and trenches on his knees, his stomach, his back.
Not a single one of those men before the Russian had even attempted kissing Ogata.
Ogata thinks those men comparatively brilliant, obviously privy to the utter lack of humanity behind Ogata’s false bedroom eyes, sensed he’d just as quickly slit their throats as he'd suck their cocks.
He isn’t even entirely certain he hasn't done that once or twice already.
Even in Ogata’s more lurid fantasies he hadn't even toyed with the thought of kissing Vasily. Ogata had yearned only for a death fitting his record, had gotten off to the idea that Vasily might fuck him hard and fast into the dirt before putting a bullet in his brain.
Ogata is not so twisted as to harbor romantic fantasies toward the man he’s permanently disfigured.
Yet, there is something viscerally appealing about the wet heat and persistent give of Vasily’s tongue. Ogata feels relatively drunk off the quiet sighs pouring forth Vasily’s broken mouth. It takes a damnable amount of control for Ogata to strike back instead of fall forward, some unbidden, dormant section of his brain ravenous for the touch of another.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Ogata whispers, afraid of the cracks he knows will appear if he dare speak any louder.
Vasily’s eyes are wide, lips slick with shared saliva. Ogata beats back the sick twitch of his fingers that yearn to yank Vasily back atop him, to pursue the continuation of recent events.
He has come so, so far without love. He will not allow himself the consummation of such a weakness simply because he will soon be nothing more than an unmarked grave in foreign soil.
Vasily stands, pulling Ogata to his feet before herding him onto the shitty little bed in the corner. He shoves Ogata against the weak frame, already moving across the room to the rucksack he must've carried when he'd broken the locks. Ogata finds himself too confused, too curious to move from where he now lies.
Ogata does not consider himself depressed or suicidal. He does not consider himself at all, usually. Emotions are for weak men and Ogata has lived a life hellbent on the eradication of such frivolities. He is simply aware that his short, unpleasant life seems to have run its predetermined course. It would be pointless, as it always has been and will continue to be so without him, to struggle fruitlessly against life’s inevitabilities.
Just as he has killed many times before, Ogata desires that he, too, must die at the hands of another. He has never deluded himself into believing he deserves anything more. He knows as well as there is no God above that mercy is just another lie, another fairy tale told in the hopes of escaping other unpleasantries set forth by humanity such as pain, judgement, sin.
Ogata would laugh if he wasn't so goddamn tired .
He strays from his thoughts at the dip of Vasily’s weight on the bed. The man is spreading out sheets of paper before him, smudging charcoal like dirty fingerprints into the already stained bedding. Ogata wants to ask again what the fuck but pauses alongside Vasily, taking a moment to consider the pages now surrounding him.
Here, in more than a dozen portraits, Ogata exists. Some are far off, merely shadowed hints of cloak and gun and eyes like that of an animal. Others are so close Ogata thinks he might've blushed if he were anyone else, capturing the quiet curve of sleep at his brow, the mundane pass of hands while cleaning his rifle, the glistening expanse of his back while bathing, the up close study of long healed sutures at his cheeks.
Ogata is at first confused, then aware , then seethingly angry. He reaches to tear the page closest to his fist, wishing to burn whatever traces of himself may lie in Vasily’s mind, in Vasily’s artist's hands.
Vasily proves quicker, collecting the drawings and shuffling them neatly back into their leather bound home. Ogata’s fingers twitch with aborted action, fidgeting up to press the wayward strands of his hair back into place.
“What the fuck is that all about?” Ogata spits, so dazedly confused by Vasily.
Or, perhaps, confusion is not the correct feeling. He is surprised. No one has ever surprised Ogata and yet, here sits a man with a sketchbook full of surprises. Ogata cannot determine whether he should laugh at or kill the unknown thing before him.
A dangerous part of himself wants to do neither.
“I like...drawing. You.” Ogata nearly bolts upright at the quiet, pained rasp of Vasily’s words. He’d thought the wound he’d inflicted had rendered Vasily mute, incapable of speech.
He is repulsed at the spike of relief he feels at knowing this isn't completely true.
“Yes, Yoshitoshi-san, I gathered as much.” Ogata snaps. “But why me?”
Vasily shrugs, eyes gone distant at the question. Ogata has half a mind to shoot himself, eager to escape this strange, shared reality.
“You are...lonely.” Vasily states, voice deathly quiet in the still room. Ogata wants to laugh, to split Vasily’s head open on the knotted hardwood floors, paint his own portrait in the Russian’s still-warm viscera.
So why does the phantom ache of emotion grip like a long forgotten promise at his throat?
Ogata wishes to deny the claim, wishes to cast this man out with the certain victory of a bullet blown clean through his skull.
And yet, he hesitates.
Ogata is not a man who hesitates, for hesitation is as good as death in war. Hesitation is a sniper’s cardinal sin. Even here, on the battlefield of this nondescript room in some unimportant town, Ogata fears what he stands to lose if he hesitates.
“What is it that you want? Show me .” Ogata hears more than permits the demand.
He has come so far without love. Why not have a taste if his death will naturally follow?
Vasily moves like a man possessed. No sooner has the permission fallen from Ogata’s lips than Vasily’s own move forward to claim him, mouth moving with biting hunger.
Ogata gives in, allowing himself to melt to ash into the stiff mattress. His heart flits madly about the confines of his chest. He wonders if this is what so many poets have spent their lives attempting to recreate in prose, this death rattle beating of love.
He hates it, but cannot find it within himself to stop.
Vasily burns down the column of his throat, making quick work of the buttons of his shirt, the clasps of his trousers. Ogata half-fears he’ll force him to pose for another drawing once he's naked, embarrassed at the heat the prospect stirs in his traitorous gut.
Vasily mouths sweetly across his chest, biting at the peaked interest of his nipples. His impossibly big hand damn near caresses the stiff bulge of Ogata’s cock, teasing the flesh without granting release.
Ogata groans, unused to being taken so slowly, body aching under the crushing weight of such adoration. He pushes feebly at Vasily’s chest, desperate to divert his singular attention. Ogata knows how to please a man, could have Vasily so far gone he would not even notice the knife Ogata has hidden between the mattress and the wall pressing deep into his spine, impassioned blood bathing Ogata clean of their collective insanity.
Ogata knows he only needs a moment to kill him. Ogata knows that that is not what he truly wants .
Vasily must sense Ogata’s mounting frustration. He strips his own clothing while using his thighs to pin Ogata to the mattress, Ogata’s muscled frame still no match for the Russian’s bulk. Ogata is distracted by the form before him, reaching blind to dig into the flesh on display.
Vasily tuts, winding the material of his shirt through the slats of the bed frame. Ogata, made momentarily stupid in his arousal, realizes a moment too late what Vasily intends.
He roars his frustration, yanking hard at the Russian’s makeshift restraints. Vasily merely grins, pretty smile all the more lovely for the mess it cuts through at his cheeks. Ogata pauses his thrashing, uncharacteristically affected by the strange beauty of the man who bound him.
Vasily leans forward, titling Ogata’s jaw to nuzzle at his ear.
“Be good for me, kotenok .” Vasily’s broken words serve their purpose, rendering Ogata still in their wake.
Vasily finishes removing their clothing, standing beside the bed to take in the body sprawled before him. Ogata’s pale skin glows pearlescent in the candlelight, limbs lax against rough sheets.
Vasily itches to draw him, to capture him, to possess him. He supposes having him will have to do, for now.
Ogata wants to claw out of his skin, so desperately wants to want to pick up the gun and finish what he thought Vasily had started. Instead, he lies paralyzed on the bed, eyes caught on Vasily towering above him.
He is so much larger than Ogata, body built as if only to cause mouths to water and knees to weaken. Ogata rarely feels the genuine stir of arousal, even rarer acts out of sheer want. This is the first time he’s turned toward another for the sole purpose of pleasure, void of ulterior motive or personal gain.
And it scares the hell out of him.
Ogata is suddenly grateful for the restraint binding him to the bed. He fears the weight of this foreign want at his shoulders, fears how he might slip further and reach for Vasily. He cannot suffer the embarrassment.
Ogata knows he is not allowed to want such things. He knows what want produces, what fantasies bring. He thinks of his mother’s frailty, shoulders bent over a pot overflowing with want. Ogata would poison her a thousand times over if it meant saving her from such foolish, impossible desires. He has lived a life of disappointment, of rejection, of solitude. If he were to give into what normal people want, what normal people desire , he'd be no better than dead for the pain it would bring.
But there is something in Vasily’s eyes that causes Ogata to reconsider. There is a flare there, in that ceaseless, crystal blue. A flare that threatens to destroy anything that stands in the Russian's path. Ogata grows harder at the thought, at the implication that Vasily might want him so badly he's willing to kill for it.
The scars at his cheeks remind Ogata that Vasily is not so different from himself. For what man would continue to chase the very things that disfigure him, the very circumstances which bind him? If Ogata is to tie himself to another, he must be as miserably mad as the superior private himself.
Ogata supposes he might allow Vasily to draw him again, if the man proves so devoutly obsessed.
“Do you need an invitation?” Ogata purrs, spreading his legs as he's used to.
What he isn't used to is his bedfellow lying worshipful between his spread legs, rough mouth kissing kindly up waiting thighs, reverent offering of himself at Ogata’s altar. Vasily settles at Ogata’s crotch and breathes , causing Ogata’s cock to twitch against the soldier’s cheek.
“Fucking dog.” Ogata grumbles, not nearly as put off by another man practically scenting his balls as he thinks he should be.
Vasily hums, playful smiling threatening the corners of his lips. He gropes about in the bag at the foot of the bed, coming back with a small tub of lidded oil.
“Spit won’t work for you, princess? I'd be happy to open a vein if blood is more to your liking.” Vasily smacks Ogata’s thigh in lieu of scolding at the crude words, working the oil warm between large fingers.
Vasily uses his clean hand to resume his grip at Ogata’s chin, dragging him into a searing kiss as he sinks the first finger completely into the tight heat of Ogata’s ass. Ogata groans, secretly grateful for the lube.
He eyes the length and girth of Vasily’s erection digging into his hip and decides he’ll shut up about blood as lube. Even if just this once.
It might as well be Ogata’s first time for the reactions Vasily succeeds in drawing, unbidden, from him. He has never been treated as if he stands to break. He has never been touched as if he is worth anything beyond his resilience to withstand such brokenness, a dirty vessel to capture whichever depravities his solicitors seek to unload.
Ogata has been beaten, bloodied, and bruised but he has never been loved.
Vasily’s fingers within him, Vasily’s mouth upon his, Vasily’s heady sighs at his nape exude such tenderness that Ogata almost hopes he’ll begin beating him. Ogata is a professional at handling pain, knows exactly what to say and do to bring others to commit atrocities, their abuse of Ogata a mere symbol of his certainty of man’s overarching animalism.
Ogata does not know how to handle being loved.
“Three of your boarish fingers are enough. Or are you having trouble keeping an erection, soldier?” Ogata sneers, knows the words are baseless for the solid press of Vasily’s arousal at his thigh.
Vasily sighs, glaring into Ogata’s black eyes as if to say I know what you’re doing. It won’t work. He simply kisses Ogata’s sweaty brow, removing his fingers from Ogata and smoothing a generous amount of oil over his own erection. He presses the head against Ogata’s hole, pushing tantalizingly slow into the waiting heat.
“You needed them.” Vasily murmurs, big hands anchored at Ogata’s hips, watching intently as the entirety of his dick pushes deep into his prey.
Ogata wants to snark back, wants to give as good as Vasily is, but the stretch of the other within him renders him stupidly silent. The pain of being split is quickly overshadowed by the pleasure of being filled, the thick line of Vasily’s cock making a mess of his insides far sooner than he would’ve willingly admitted.
Vasily leans downward, still and buried to the hilt, hips moving near imperceptible against the soft give of Ogata’s ass.
Ogata groans, growing tired of being treated like some blushing virgin. He presses his weight down onto the cock within him, attempting to incite Vasily into fucking him meaner.
Vasily merely grins, one large hand leaving his hip to grab tight at Ogata’s throat. Ogata sucks a harsh breath around the sudden restriction, eyes going a bit hazy at the edges.
Vasily’s eyes reflect that dangerous, possessive glint. He leans down, running his cheek up the length of Ogata’s throat, mouthing gently at his ear.
“ Let me, koshechka.” The garbled command coupled with the sudden, punishing thrust of Vasily’s hips tears a sob from Ogata’s still constricted throat.
Vasily steadily releases the pressure from his hand, pounding into Ogata with thrusts meant only to please the Japanese sniper. Vasily soothes the red, angry mark at the other’s throat with his tongue before sucking love bites into the tender flesh.
Ogata knows his wrists will bruise. He pulls madly against the bindings, desperate to escape the mind-numbing pleasure Vasily is pumping into him. He wants so badly to escape, mind instinctually fearful of how this encounter will rewrite the fundamental understanding of what he has always trained himself to want.
He cannot want this.
Vasily slows, hands coming forward to cage Ogata’s face, forehead pressing sweetly against the reddened face of his sniper. Ogata looks anywhere but at the Russian’s gaze, knowing what he will see if he relents.
Vasily snaps his hips forward and Ogata feels the sparks of his orgasm building deep within his gut. His cock lies between their chests, untouched and leaking.
Ogata gasps, ashamed for the tears welling at the corner of his left eye, unable to avoid Vasily any longer.
“ Why?” Ogata rasps, met with the unfettered blue of Vasily’s stare, flare of insanity now buried beyond the warmth of open affection. “ Why me?”
Vasily does not answer, choosing instead to capture Ogata in yet another kiss. He kisses Ogata languidly, as if they are not enemies fucking in some decrepit inn, gun lying blessedly near on the floor. Vasily kisses Ogata as if that is the only answer the other needs. Ogata supposes he will allow it, for now.
Ogata feels the flash of metal at his wrists, the sudden freedom of numb hands lying loose above his head. He catches sight of his knife in Vasily’s hand, knowing smirk lighting the Russian’s eyes. Of course. Ogata wants to laugh, wants to ask how Vasily seems to anticipate each of Ogata’s moves, but finds he’d rather not waste time asking questions he already knows the answers to.
He presses up into Vasily, freed hands running rampant across the plane of Vasily’s chest, down the steady heat of his abdomen, before pressing hard against his own rim, high off the stretch there from Vasily’s cock. Vasily gasps, bringing Ogata’s searching knuckles up to his lips, pressing kisses into calloused fingertips.
Ogata could die from the pressure burning deep within his ribcage.
Ogata twines his arms around the sniper’s wide shoulders, holding on as the man above him sets a merciless rhythm of carefully, lovingly positioned thrusts. He knows he will cum soon, can feel the phantom threat of release at his groin.
“If you get me off in the next five thrusts I’ll let you cum inside me, handsome.” Ogata displays his most shit-eating grin, insufferable to the end.
Vasily merely nods, pressing Ogata impossibly far into the mattress before drawing almost completely out of him, an equally smug grin pulling taut at his cheeks.
“Three.” Vasily promises.
Ogata has half a mind to ask what exactly he means, but gets the point soon enough as Vasily slams to the hilt within him, abusing his prostate and sparking fireworks behind Ogata’s eyelids. He only makes it through half of the third thrust before he’s cumming hard between them, eyes rolling back and throat torn open on a gasp.
Vasily fucks him through the aftershocks, rhythm falling to pieces as he smears Ogata’s cum into his skin, fingers pushing into the meat of Ogata’s lower abdomen.
“ Here.” Vasily grits, big hands splaying possessive at Ogata’s groin, spent dick twitching. “ Mine.” He breathes, thrusting once more into Ogata before spilling hot within him, as if intending to impregnate the sniper.
Ogata would taunt him if the words didn’t knock something loose within his already fucked out brain.
Vasily wastes no time, using the shirt he’d used as Ogata’s cuffs to tenderly clean the cum dripping lewd from Ogata. Ogata finds himself far too satiated to care, near catatonic with the orgasm Vasily had ripped from him.
Vasily gathers Ogata to his chest, blue eyes fierce still in the afterglow. Ogata cannot fight the rise of panic blooming quick in his chest at being held, at being cared for. He goes to push from Vasily’s embrace, only to find that the Russian is holding far tighter than he’d originally anticipated.
“I will not change.” Ogata whispers, resigned for now to just lie in the other’s arms.
Vasily nods, rubbing a few lingering patterns into the soft skin at Ogata’s spine. He releases Ogata to reach for his rucksack. Ogata assumes that the charade has reached its conclusion as Vasily sorts through his belongings.
He wonders if Vasily will still kill him or if the humiliation he’d wrenched from Ogata at being so intimately known will be enough to satiate the other’s revenge.
Vasily sits at the foot of the bed, hands smudging charcoal into a page of his sketchbook. Ogata is about to kick him from his perch and out the door, but stops as Vasily slides a piece of paper toward him.
There, on the otherwise blank page, is a message.
I am not asking you to change. I am asking you to stay.
If Ogata still retained the ability to cry, he supposes the messy note might’ve gotten him. He stares at the man before him, who is nothing more than just another man who might hurt Ogata, who might betray him. He is just another man that Ogata will likely kill. The rays of the dying sun light golden firmaments in the Russian’s hair, easy blue eyes demanding nothing, seeking nothing.
He reasons Vasily is only offering the desperate desires Ogata has long since killed within his broken, bleeding, human heart. He fails to erase the vision of a pot of nabe filled with meat Ogata had slaughtered fresh for the large, warm hands who stood at their shared hearth and stirred.
Ogata nods, if only to himself. He supposes a near-mute Russian who rivals only himself when it comes to handling a gun might be the only acceptable allowance he’ll make in his continuously miserable, unending existence.
What is the harm in love if their bodies will inevitably end as mottled corpses in a shared, cramped grave?
“If you ever piss me off, I will kill you.” Ogata promises, secretly delighting in the tiny smile at Vasily’s twisted mouth. “Now draw me naked before I change my mind.”