Chapter Text
To say Prauvil was anti-social would be an understatement.
Not only did he have no desire for any human social interaction, he felt like it actively harmed him. This was a problem that had persisted most of his life, but had worsened significantly after the death of his wife five years earlier, and somehow even worse after his father died and he inherited the family home.
That never made sense to him. He hated his father and he was pretty sure his father hated him. Maybe that’s why he left him the house- because he hated that damn house too. Yet, out of necessity, he’d lived there for the past several years, in and out of jobs, and pecking away slowly at his savings. So, of course, it only made sense for him to get a roommate.
Or at the very least that’s the story Prauvil told everyone else.
Prauvil met Ignat at a bar about two years earlier. They hit it off quite well. Prauvil found he didn’t hate being around him. Prauvil found he didn’t hate a lot of things around Ignat. And, after the customary period of casual hints back and fourth, it turned out Ignat had similar feelings.
Unlike Prauvil, Ignat had both always known he liked men, and never tried not to. Prauvil was almost envious of that. Of course, Prauvil was not ready to fully dissect his relationship with women- after all. He had loved his wife. But… It was different than how he felt about Ignat.
Their relationship was private. It had to be. They couldn’t exactly go on dates, hold hands, or steal kisses in public (public displays of affection made Prauvil’s skin crawl at the mere thought anyways) as same sex relationships remained very much illegal in the Soviet Union. To avoid being accused of any kind of ‘deviant behaviour’, everything had to happen behind closed doors. But Prauvil preferred that. It was the next best thing to being alone- being alone together.
So- as far as anyone else knew- Ignat was Prauvil’s roommate. A tenant in the home that was too large for one single man to live in anyways… Of course, if anyone really spent much time in the home, they might realize there’s only one bedroom. But for that to happen, someone else would have to actually come into the house, and that never happened (excluding the odd visit from Prauvil’s friendly and concerned neighbour, but, Nail was kind and he minded his own business. If he’d ever noticed anything amiss, he never said anything about it.)
At the beginning of this summer, Prauvil didn’t have a job. Ignat, on the other hand, did. While times had been tough, he had managed to maintain a job at a factory in the city. Unfortunately, he’d been moved to a night shift recently. Something about how the raising heat levels meant it was more efficient to work at night when it wasn’t so hot out. As a result of both of these factors, their sleep schedules had been pretty iradkic as of late. They slept most of the day, got up in the late afternoon, and Ignat went to work at night. Of course, Ignat would assume that Prauvil stayed up and did things while he was at work… This was rarely the case. Prauvil would usually just go back to bed, even if he didn’t sleep. It was easier that way.
Prauvil had a horrible habit of spiralling in his own depressive episodes, and he refused to confide in anyone about it, including Ignat.
Especially, Ignat.
Compared to him, Ignat felt like such a beam of sunlight, and radiating endless optimism, refusing to let even the most dire of circumstances get to him. Similarly to Prauvil, his life leading up to their convergence had been marked with sorrow and misfortune. But, unlike Prauvil, it never seemed to effect him. Prauvil would hate to put his problems on him, to dull that light. He could handle it alone. He always had.
On this summer evening, Prauvil was still in bed. Was he sleeping? He wasn’t even sure. He was in that strange, disassociate state where he wasn’t even fully aware if he was conscious or not. Until, he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him back to reality.
“Hey… Are you going to get up?” Ignat’s voice was like honey, far too happy for someone about to have to go to work at the time it was. Prauvil would never know what Ignat saw in him.
Prauvil grumbled a little as he rolled over and sat up. He looked over at his cheerful partner, already dressed in a light grey sweater and brown slacks. It never seemed like appropriate clothes for a factory job, but Ignat had once told him he had clothes at work he changed into.
“Yeah, of course.” He said, coming off shorter than he would have liked. Ignat chuckled.
“Alright, what ever you say.” Ignat leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to the corner of Prauvil’s mouth. “Sometimes I think if I wasn’t around you’d never get out of bed.”
Though Ignat said this as a joke, Prauvil was almost certain it was true.
“I have to go, but, I left some coffee in the pot by the stove if you want some. We also still have some leftover soup from yesterday in the fridge. Could be a good quick meal.” Ignat suggested. Prauvil felt a little guilty. He’d been getting worse lately at getting up when Ignat did to spend time with him.
“Alright, thanks.” Prauvil mustered a small smile. “Have a good shift.”
Ignat smiled back at him. There was something about the look in his eyes that seemed to suggest he knew there was more going on than Prauvil was letting on, but, he chose not to push it in that moment. Either that, or, he knew starting that particular conversation would take so long that it would make Ignat late for work, and accordingly, under his unforgiving boss’s rules, fired.
“I’ll see you later, Prauvil.”
With that, Ignat was gone.
——
Despite what he had told Ignat, the moment he was gone Prauvil had gone back to bed. Or, he would have, if he wasn’t so rudely awoken by his phone ringing.
Prauvil dragged himself out of bed, and answered the phone. It was his neighbour, Nail. He didn’t have anything that out there to say. Just talking about the state of the world, the rising heat outside, how he just got back from vacation with his family and his daughter doesn’t want to go back to school. Small talk stuff. Until Nail insisted he would be coming over. Something about it not being safe to be alone right now, so he’d come stay over until Ignat got back in the morning. Why wasn’t it safe? Something about visitors, that thing they kept talking about on the tv. Some damn conspiracy theory type thing about monsters that looked like humans crawling out of the ground and walking amongst people. Supposedly they were dangerous and wanted to get into peoples houses. Something like that. Prauvil wasn’t sure how much he believed that, which as to say he didn’t at all. But regardless, Nail insisted he’d be coming over, which was shortly confirmed by a knock at the door.
Prauvil let Nail in. He said something about how he had a friend staying at his house who would protect his wife and daughter if something happened, and something about how his cousin said something serious was going to happen with the visitors and the sun soon. That he was glad Prauvil didn’t live alone, at the very least he’d be safe when Ignat got back from work. Much of it went over Prauvil’s head, like this was yet another thing happening around him.
Nail made himself comfortable in the kitchen. It didn’t seem like a particularly comfortable place to sleep, but Prauvil wasn’t going to stop him. He could scarcely stop him from coming over in the first place.
Prauvil slumped back off to bed, memories of what Nail said quickly slipping away. It was all nonsense anyways.
He laid back down in bed and closed his eyes.
Tomorrow is a new day.