exsilium | oo1; voice + video

oo1; voice + video

Biggest country in world I know but Initiative don't seem to bother to bring anyone else but me. Too many goddamned Americans and Japanese. [ Says the heavy Russian accent. ] And aliens. And fucking elves. [ For all the emphasis he puts on that word, he doesn't sound angry. More of a 'fuck, what the hell, man?'

... Sorry, elves. He's targeting one elf in particular and he doesn't much care if there's more of them.

Sharp snort. Sound of a lighter snapping on, and the crackling of cigarettes. Then the camera switches on.

Have a pair of heavily tattooed hands, one of them curled around a white stick. Then he tips the tablet upwards until it shows his face, and Nikolai pulls off the sunglasses. ]

You lot ever get tired of talking on this thing? Bunch of stupid questions lately. [ He takes a drag of the cigarette, and blows it at the screen. ] You've all forgotten how to fuck, or something?

[ ooc; for any character with knowledge of Russian criminals, Nikolai's hands carry tattoos that basically says he's one of the worst ones out there. Yeah.

Also, content warnings for sexual assault for the thread with Steph (

controlledvariable). ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ That tells him a lot about her. Not in how she says it, but the two words themselves. There are certain types of people who will use 'calculated risk'. Suddenly Nikolai thinks of Yuri, of a man he hasn't thought of for months, and he almost laughs.

Calculated risk. Alright then. ]

Very clever to calculate like that.

[The smile she gives him would almost be sweet, if it weren't for - everything else about this situation. But she knows what she's revealing, and it can be a warning as much as it could be anything else.]

I'm glad you think so.

[Which could be saying all sorts of things, but mostly she's just kind of bemused by the fact he hasn't told her to fuck off yet.]

[ Almost sweet is better than 'sweet'. 'Sweet' is dangerous, in his world. Either it's a trap, or it's something that will be ruined sooner or later.

He just shrugs. And frankly, it's pretty much fuck-off time. ]

You always have this much time on your hand, dyevochka?

Unfortunately. [She's being mostly serious there, there is very little to do in Exsilium, when compared with her schedule at home.] It's probably why everyone spends too much time on this thing - [she taps the edge of the tablet.] - too much time on our hands.

[ He laughs at that. ]

And Initiative tell us we at war. [ He shakes his head. ] Fucking unbelievable.

[ He means that literally: that it's something that cannot be believed. ]

I don't think they care much whether you believe it or not. [She seems more wryly amused than anything, because she can understand how unbelievable the whole thing is] They don't give you much of a chance to say no when the "missions" roll around.

[She doesn't actually make airquotes, but she considers it, and they're audible in her tone.]

[ He tips his head, just very little, to the side. ]

Interesting. They have way to convince people to go even when they try to hide?

[a shrug]

We get a warning on the tablets, but if you don't head to the transporters, they'll just send us off anyway, same way we were brought in.

[So, without asking. Just sudden teleportation.]

[ The most ironic thing he said in the entire conversation: ]

Rude.

[Ironic, definitely, enough that Steph chuckles.]

The whole kidnapping thing didn't clue you into that?

[Gently teasing the gangster is a great idea.]

[ Nikolai shrugs. (Yes, Steph, teasing the gangster is an awesome idea. Please stop. Eventually he's going to remember that he's supposed to be pretending to be a vor here.) ]

They say that is not their fault.

[ Bullshit is obvious is his tone. ]

[She hums, it could be either thoughtful or dismissive]

They turned on the machines, I think that makes it their fault.

[Or "bullshit", yes.]

[ A small, thoughtful sound. Then Nikolai's face becomes stone again. ]

You always make small talk with dangerous men, dyevochka?

[And she raises an eyebrow at that, idly tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

"No, I usually beat the shit out of them" does not seem like the smartest response in this case.]

Dangerous men are easy, it's the nice ones I tend to watch out for.

[There's still a bit of mischief in her expression, for all that the statement is fairly true, in her mind.]

[ Oh, it is true. Semyon is a prime example. A sweet grandfather on the outside, that's what he is. At least Nikolai is truthful. His hands tell what he is. (No, they don't. They say what he is meant to be, but, well, sometimes the lines are confused.)

Nikolai gives her a crooked little smile. ]

Nothing wrong with nice men. [ He leans forward, just slightly. Beat. ] Was thinking you don't like men at all, but that is not true. Mm?

[So far she's kept her expressions fairly subdued, or purposefully not subdued, but the surprise registers on her face before she can hold it in check. Is he suggesting what she thinks he's suggesting?]

I'm sure I have no idea what you mean.

[Not - annoyed, just sort of confused and a little bit amused at the insinuation.]

[ He freezes the little smile on his face.

(He does like disconcerting people. There's nearly no group more homophobic than the Russian vor, and for someone with his tattoos to suggest it... Nikolai is almost tempted to sound earnest- but no, that will be laying it on too thick.)

Instead, he takes a drag of his cigarette. ]

You have plenty idea what I mean.

[It takes a moment, but she manages to school her expression into something more neutral. She doesn't really care what he might suggest, the only concern is whether it might be a vague sort of threat.

Rather than responding straight away, she leans back in her chair a little, watching him in silence for a moment, then she just smiles a little.]

You seem to think you know a lot about me. Does it matter to you, if I like men?

[Yeah, she's just gonna turn that one around on him, tilting her head slightly to accompany the question and the slight suggestion in it, her expression something like a challenge.]

[ Oh, that's at least two ways to take that question. One of the ways gives Nikolai a dilemma: does he keep up with the homophobic image of the vor, or does he answer it with misogyny, or does he answer it like he wants to?

Too much trouble.

The second way is much easier: ]

You are too young for me, dyevochka. [ He drags out of last word, and grins. ] I prefer women, a bit older.

[Honestly, for all the dyevochka is annoying her, that answer loosens a tension in her chest that she hadn't even realized had been there. The age difference between her and Nikolai is about the same as what as between her and Jim Murray, and that's not something that's easy to think about, even if it never ended as badly as it could have. He's older than Sionis, too, and that's yet another thing she doesn't want to think about.

The way her gaze flicks off screen briefly might give a little too much away, but it's an unconscious gesture.]

Not as dangerous a man as you could be, then.

[She manages to make her lips quirk in an almost-smile, like she's amused at something that isn't very amusing at all.]

[ Poóguanaya voróna sóbstvyennoy tyéni boítsya. The spooked crow is afraid of its own shadow. Nikolai knows the proverb well, and he thinks- the crow will never spook another either.

There's something visceral in feeling warmth beneath your hand, in looking into someone's eyes and knowing you're almost - just almost - fucking a corpse.

Nikolai turns his head. He flicks the cigarette to the side, and takes a deep drag. ]

They tell me: in London prisons, prisoners kill men who fuck little girls. [ He lets out the smoke, letting it obscure his eyes. ]

For vor, young girls better, easier to be sure they are virgins. [ The smoke starts to clear, but Nikolai doesn't help it along. ] Me? I think too skinny.

[How still she goes betrays as much as any other reaction could; her expression just shut down completely, except for the tension in her jaw, and unseen, her hands curl into fists.

She doesn't know what to say, because all she can think about is Murray's hands on her arms, the way Sionis talked to her, like a threat. But she needs to say something, otherwise she thinks she might drown in the silence.]

Don't need prisoners to kill them.

[The men who fuck little girls, in London or otherwise. She will kill them herself, she realizes, if she got her hands on them.

It's not a threat, not against Nikolai, but it was the first words that came to mind, a reassurance to herself that there are ways she can stop men hurting children. Maybe she should care about Bruce's rules, but one thing she's never regretted is finding out that her dad killed Murray, regardless of his reasons for it. There are some people who shouldn't be left alive.]

[ Ah.

He knows a girl in Abax, with golden hair. She speaks Russian with slight American accent, she calls herself Illyana (he calls her- Katya, at some point). She fights well, and she says she is a part of a team, a team that kills bad people.

Nikolai almost smiles. But he is balancing on a knife's edge, in between 'speaking' and 'not speaking', trying to find a lie that will not sink a knife into his heart (because, oddly, he enjoys speaking to this girl).

He smokes to delay time. ]

Maybe not. [ He lets out the ribbon of smoke. ] But British law is soft and won't kill anyone.

[ Stubbing out his cigarette on the ashtray near his elbow, Nikolai keeps his eyes on her. ]

You can fight, da?

[Part of her hates that he takes so long to reply, but another part is glad for the time to force herself to be calm, to lock all those thoughts back up where they belong, instead of letting them get too close to the surface.

It feels like an open wound, fingers digging into it (and that's a pain she knows, and another thought that gets pushed away like everything to do with Sionis), but she's too stubborn to let it tear her apart. She regrets what she said, the suggestion, even if there's a difference between a suggestion and having all this dragged up. Still, she should have known better. And still, she's grateful when he asks a question that pulls her thoughts away from Murray and Sionis and other little girls who've been through worse than she has.

Does she fight?

She should say 'no', like a good little Bat with a secret identity, but she's tired of being called dyevochka.]

Better than most. [Simply, a statement of fact rather than a boast, and although she's tense, but there's a hint of expectation in her expression, waiting to see what he might have to say.]

[ It's a cagey answer, and that tells him more than she might think it does. Nikolai misses London all of the sudden; misses the darkness of the vor because there, children might still be innocent, that they know nothing of the atrocities that people are capable of. In London he can walk out of Semyon's restaurant and see people like Anna, nice people, ordinary people who know nothing about the filth that he's coated with, who avoid him out of fear instead of looking at him in the eyes because they already know darkness and they have faced it before.

In a place like this- in Abax- somehow the children are no longer children. They are broken things instead, darkness already corrupting them, and it's almost enough to make him despair because of how little soaking himself in blood has done. But Nikolai has never tried to save the world. Just one person is enough. Most of the time.

(It's funny that he thinks this way, because Nikolai has never been an innocent child himself. He started stealing at an age younger than she is now, simply because it's the only way he can think of to find something to eat. At her age he's already been to prison, and that's even marked on his body. At her age he knows the cruelty of people; knows that even teenagers can be rapists and murderers if they are given enough incentive. Survival is always enough incentive.)

He lingers on the silence. ]

Even gzah who know how to fight still needs to be careful. [ He's giving himself away and he knows it, but it is too easy to break a mask built over decades, and somehow he knows he still wants to remain human. ]

Maybe machine not that random.

[ An offering to change the subject. (It disturbs him too.) ]

Edited 2013-03-10 16:28 (UTC)

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TW: reference to sexual assault

this entire thread needs warnings. i am so sorry for this tag.

it's okay :c but yeah those warnings are... still here

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