thinking about horror movies isn't usually something he does on his own. there are rules, set ups, rule breakers and all but koschei doesn't care about them for the most part. all he cares about is coming home with ash, pulling him into bed and doing what married couples do. he doesn't think about the world shifting around them, doesn't feel it. he doesn't think about girls grinning up at their boyfriends as they have sex, the timer starting for when they would die in the movie for the sin of flesh meeting flesh, of like meeting like.
it doesn't exist. not for him, not for ash as he kisses him, as he gets him out of his clothes and he fumbles for the light.
they aren't in a horror movie when they close their eyes, but they certainly are in one when he opens his eyes the next morning, the very air changed and the thought in his head, unbidden, of metal claws running on pipes.
he hasn't met leraje in a long, long time. he doesn't mean to run into him, here. he only came out to check, to try and get supplies for ash, to ignore the itch in the black of his brain. that itch that gets more and more as more reports flow in of chaos, of violence, of things coming out of the woodwork that shouldn't be there. indicators of things that he's always craved in the back of his head, that he's been able to ignore, to leave in the blackness there since ash came back. it's all been muffled, ignorable.
until the arrow sails through the air and directly hits him in the shoulder. what's more shocking about it is that the arrow is familiar tin the way it hurts koschei. more that it actually hurts him and he stands there, flabbergasted for a moment until something he hasn't felt in centuries starts to permeate his brain. it's so familiar, those tendrils of rage, of seething, hot white anger that seems to scoop into the belly of his being for a moment, digging deep into him. the feeling he had whenever leraje's hand settled on the top of his head, the feeling he had whenever he mounted a horse to lead soldiers into battle, the feeling he had whenever he dragged a screaming, quaking victim to the daemon.
it's war, licking it's chops. it's the feeling of needing to break any and everything, to make people bleed.
when he lifts his head up, he can see leraje there, the smirk on his face dangerous, his hand going to another arrow.
koschei doesn't think; he just acts. not as an obedient war dog for his master, but one let loose, free to bite the hand that feeds. and he does, pulling the arrow from his shoulder, breaking it in half and moving as fast as he can to give it right back.
he can smell blood. taste blood. feel it on him. he sticks his tongue out, licking at his lips as he makes his way home, back to ash, back to asa, back to the firebird. he doesn't know how long he's been out here, head thick beneath the cotton of rage, of the feeling of war moving him about. all he knows is that at some point, leraje's power spilled out, yanked him back into that mindset and he had just been a rabid dog let off of it's leash. now? he's distantly aware that at some point, he and leraje had stopped targeting just each other, had torn at others too.
those old hooks that leraje had in him? they'd found themselves back in him, had hooked him right up to the feeling of war, of rage in him that truly had never left and were pushing themselves forward in him again. even if leraje couldn't command him directly anymore, even if his soul wasn't in his hands, the need, the thrill of violence is back in him.
in all that, he knows this: he has to get home. some tiny part of his mind remembers that he has to get back home, try and be normal again, try and get from under the shake that leraje has and that tiny part is getting weaker and weaker.
he can't. he can't stay out here.
he has to go. go home. go somewhere safe, retreat from the bloodshed even if he wants to keep going, even if he knows he can go on for hours, days, weeks. even if he's covered in blood, even if he's sure that his teeth are aching from tearing at flesh, that his hands ache to do more harm. he has to go.
except when he goes through that door, he doesn't see anything resembling peace. that little voice in the back of his head dies quickly at the sight of the landlord, hunched over ash, at the scent of blood and fear in the air, at the sound of rage coming from him, at the knives at the ready.
koschei becomes violence again, as he wrenches the man up and he looks absolutely hellish as he drags the man to the floor. as his fingers grasp that hair of his, and he viciously begins to slam his head on the floor without so much as a word. he just grasps at his skull, ignores the gasps and screams, slams it over and over again until the sound changes from a solid one of a skull meeting floor to that of a crack until the skull finally breaks beneath the assault and the brain matter scatters on the floor and he's satisifed that the landlord will never lift a single finger ever again.
when it's over, when there's nothing that resembles a man's face, he does what he's meant to do: he makes his way over to ash, and he grasps his face, unaware of how he looks, of the blood on him, of the way his eyes are almost burning a hole in his face, trying to check that ash is safe.
"ash?" there is no answer, just a body with the neck slit on the bathroom floor.
"asya?" he touches his neck, tries to feel for a pulse that isn't there. the blood that smears on his fingers is thick, dark, and he can't process for a moment what's going on. there is simply the feeling of failure, of an opening pit in him that he has failed again, that ash is dead and it is his fault. it is always, always his fault.
there are tears in his eyes, and as he tries more and more to try and force ash to wake up, to breathe, the more labored his breathing gets, the more narrow his vision gets and koschei doesn't want to do this, he doesn't want think of ash as a body, as lifeless, as a thing suited for burial and mourning and shrouds andβ
and β
koschei's mind goes to what he knows now. what he didn't want to prepare for, but does now as he gently lifts up ash's body (still longer than his, and he doesn't want to see that slit on his neck) and makes his way through the apartment. he moves as if walking through water as he puts ash's body in a car, making sure to buckle him into the passenger seat, to keep him there as he goes to find a pine box, a shovel on short notice. maybe he is too gentle to the dead in a way he has not reserved for the living when he puts ash into the box and puts the box into a hole he digs. maybe he is too caring as he shovels the dirt on him, maybe he is too human when he allows himself to cry near his grave.
all he knows is that he's dead. and that in a few days, a few hours... there'll be an egg. there will be an egg and hope that maybe, just maybe, ash will find him again.
somewhere between finding ash's body, burying him, ash coming back covered in graveyard dirt and searching for a hotel, koschei's mind has shifted. it isn't exactly mourning anymore, but it isn't exactly joy, either.
it's because ash is getting used to the horror. he can see it in his face, he can feel it when they touch, when they move around, not wanting to be hunted but to be hunters. even when he makes sure to pick the glass out of his hands, even when he tries to clean his fingers of the graveyard dirt, something has changed. something is lost that can be regained. and some of that is his fault.
maybe it's the war dog in him, maybe it's the killer, the brutal piece of him that is awake, though, that likes it in a way. that doesn't mind that ash doesn't push him back, that doesn't pull away when they come upon marya and the warehouse. any other tme and he would be angry, disgusted that he's allowed this, that he doesn't mind tugging him out of the street and to the warehouse where there are vampires there, laughing, dancing, the music throbbing through the air.
it's safer here than on the streets. any of them could take a vampire, and all three of them can feel that here, they're all just here not to tear at each other but for something else, something a little more normal. it doesn't make the violence in him exactly go, though: there are still those who brush up too close, who try to comment on marya's scar, who want to cleave closer to ash.
he shoves them, kicks them. laughs when one of them is shoved so hard that her skull cracks and some smell of blood begins to grow stronger. the music is louder, harder, and as hands start to move up in the air, as the scent of blood gets stronger, koschei reaches up to. that black part of his brain, that war infection that leraje gave him just makes it easier to accept that yes, ash is getting used to the horror, that koschei doesn't mind it, that at the moment, he can feel a bit better nestled between his wife and his best friend.
then the sprinklers cut on. the blood pours, the vampires yell in admiration, and he sticks his tongue out, drags ash closer. the blood comes down in messy, wet deluges that goes down hot. the blood fills his mouth to bursting, seeps down his throat — and he grasps ash's cheeks, kisses him, and lets the blood flow down on them and around them.
it isn't perfect. but they are alive. they are safer in a nest of vampires than home.
(in the back of his head, he wonders if the monstrousness will be too much, after this. he wonders if the laughter he gives at marya's cruelty, if the brutality he displays easily will overwhelm him, if the blood he gives ash is too much, if when this is over, ash might decide otherwise.)
if the horror, if the cruelty, if the brutality is too much, it doesn't show when koschei sits up in the midst of a disgusting, bloody gas station, glaring at the man who had killed him seconds before. the mask can't entirely hide the shock on his face, nor can it hide the terror when koschei bares his teeth at him.
his thoughts may be very broken, he may be stressed, but he knows how to be violent, he knows how to make someone hurt. guns and machetes don't matter, and he makes quick enough work of them. they're all human, after all: not daemon, not vampire, not shifter, not revenant. and even if they were, he'd cut his teeth on hordes before.
"They really should have known better," ash's remark is blase, calm. hours, days ago koschei would've ben upset about it, would have felt distressed. instead, he watches as ash picks up the machete, walks over the body.
he thinks about ash upset that he wasn't 'useful', and he picks up his discarded slushee, refills it, and grabs another for marya, filling it with the red she likes so much. "stupid," he remarks, filling them back up. he secures the top, the straws, and slams his heel on the hand of a still twitching body once, twice, until there's no more movement.
then he presses a sloppy, still bloodstained, kiss to ash's mouth.
fog isn't exactly a new thing for him to encounter. he's been in battlefields where the line of sight was so diminished that he had felt as if he was alone despite the scent of blood in the air, despite the sound of men's screams in the distance; he's been on a sidewalk with just marya beside him only for fog to descend so heavily that even her body beside his seemed to vanish. this fog is supernatural in the way it settles down, and in the way that it seeps into him.
he can't even call out for ash. the cold seeps into him, and something grabs him down, makes the fog into something else for a moment.
he knows it's not real, when he feels a pair of arms wrap around his waist, when he feels a pair of lips against his ear, saying, "kostya, what are you doing outside?"
he knows it isn't. he knows as he turns around, that he is in seattle. that he was in seattle and that asa isn't here. it can't be asa because asa is ash now, with shorter hair, with a less refined gait, not dripping in gold the way he is here. koschei knows, he knows yet for a moment he takes him in, the way he used to be. the spector that's been haunting him for centuries, dressed the last time he saw him, dripping in gold, with a soft smile.
a soft smile he hates. now he knows better: that smile was like that not because asa was happy to see him but because he knew what had just happened. what ivan had forced him to do.
"don't," koschei begs the way he has before, the way he had the day it had all happened, the way he always does, the way he can't seem to stop. he knows what's coming anyway, his body pantomiming the way he has done for centuries. he lunges; asa stops him, presses a hand to his face. there is a struggle for a moment, koschei wanting to rip into ivan, to kill him and then there's a horrible, sweepingly calm feeling that overtakes him. that fire in him, the rage, the need to be violent is muffled all at once.
the calm overtakes his body in a blanket. there's a feeling of anger, of distress that can't fully crest as he goes on his knees, as he feels his arms hang limply at his sides, not reaching for a weapon, not reaching out for his wife. there is nothing to do except watch as asa begins to move in those beautiful ways he has done before, his skin starting to spark, ivan watching.
he begins to immolate. koschei tries to move, tries to get up, but asa's power over him is absolute, here.
koschei watches him die, watches the fire burn, and a voice in his ear says, "what a sweet story."
a face that's burned, pockmarked brushes against his cheek. and koschei wills himself to wake up right as sharpened claws pierce his chest
waking up is visceral. for a moment, he doesn't believe that it is real, hands flying up to his chest, ripping into it. the only indication that it's reality is that the place has shifted, that the pockmarked man is gone for now. what magic he has he uses to force himself to better wakenfulness, chase out the cobwebs in his brain, look for any other presecence. there's no one except koschei, alone.
no more sleeping. not anymore.
shakily he gets to his feet, shoving the thoughts, the memories, the dreams of asa immolating before him out. there's only one focus now, and that's finding ash.
all of which becomes much, much easier when ash himself shows up, in the hotel room. except... except something about his gaze when he levels it at koschei is different. colder.
a bullet has torn it's way through his brain. a machete has been shoved into his chest. an arrow has shot through his shoulder.
physical hurts have come, gone in the week or so that they've been here. at one point it was enough that he had been reduced to just rapid fire thoughts, muddled words, a need to keep moving rather than dwell on anything, to think. the last time that he'd been harmed, his brain had snapped back into place, he'd been made verbal again, able to at least move around, think better.
to have ash start to try and kill him is another ballgame. one that he thinks he's prepared for: asa had been born to a wealthy family who had no need to train him to be anything but a future politician, a piece on the chessboard who served no real use except to have a silver tongue, honeyed words. ash wasn't all that dissimilar in a way, just a normal seeming man who hadn't needed to fight, to know how to kill someone with those delicately long fingers of his, who didn't know how to use his height or weight to his advantage for more than anything except taunting his little sister.
kicking, biting, scratching at koschei doesn't make him angry so much as concerned. it's easy enough to restrain him, and it's not that functionally different from guiding him when he's been too drunk to get back to bed or to find the steps. every bit of attempted violence slides off of him, and for the most part so do the angry words. it's not ash talking, it's something or someone else.
except when, as he's shoving ash into the bathtub, he says: she just wants you gone, in such a way that it actually makes koschei pause trying to find the cause of everything for a second. when he asks who she means, the answer of she, her β the fucking snow queen catches koschei off guard. this place is a lot of things, all at once, and the idea that she was still out there, still angry that her intended pawn had left her?
he hadn't taken it seriously at first, biting off, you've got to be fucking kidding me. that cΡΠΊΠ° is the one doing this?
hearing ash retort, that cΡΠΊΠ° is my wife feels like a worse wound than anything he's taken that week. it makes him set his teeth on edge, his hand shake, for the control he's felt over this, the assurance that it would pass...
for one brief moment, with the way ash says it, the conviction? it makes him doubt, fearful for one moment. it strikes true panic, fear in him, real anger and hurt to hear it from ash.
it's childish to argue back (you aren't a husband. you're my wife), to let it get to him. that's what she — or this thing cosplaying her — wants, it wants to feed off of the anger, chaos and hurt. he knows that, he knows the stories about her, but for once, for once the wound is truly felt.
the water fills up the bathtub, with ash in it. the water sloshes up, starting out cold, gaining heat the more and more it flows. his head is still buzzing with the words ash said, that he was her husband.
ash might not remember it, but koschei does. he still remembers sometimes, seeing her across the room, of her gaze coldly settled on them. he still remembers checking to make sure that some engagements, she wasn't there, or if she was, he'd tell asa at the very last moment. there were conversations both short and long about her, about her reach, about what they'd done.
he had come when called. he had come to answer the call of someone desperate, and they found happiness together, but it didn't erase years of fear, of the fact that people told stories where he took, where asa was a prisoner, where he was a captor, an evil thing that had stolen someone who didn't belong to him.
it still claws at something inside of him, even as he does what he's supposed to: he keeps ash in the water, seeing some blood mixing with it, the shard taken out of his chest. the magic he has seeps out of him, heating up the water, trying to burn out her influence maybe as surely as he tries to burn out the fact that most people looking in, those who didn't know, would think this was the truth of it all, of taking without asking, of harm. he tries to burn out the anger, the horrible feeling he has in his chest, knowing that he hadn't even expected ash to be alive, that he should be happy at least that ash was alive so he could harm him.
koschei's gaze is only on the water, head buzzing. he almost doesn't feel ash's hand move to his, but he does hear, clearly, i'm sorry.
the door is familiar in a bad way. this isn't the hotel door that holds the linens: it's got markings on it, a grinning pumpkin that seems menacing the more koschei looks at it.
there's no way that he should open this. there's no way that he should trust it. but something about the carving, about the way that the door starts to swing open tells koschei that even if he didn't want to step through, it was going to pull him in anyhow as much as he doesn't want to do anything except sit down and rest. he wants to actually shut his eyes for once, to push away the feelings from the past few hours, to just curl back up in bed, wait things out.
he takes a step backwards from it, opening his mouth to call for ash, to at least try, try to beat the current of magic he can feel emnating. he's too late though; the magic hits him squarely in the chest, dragging him towards the door. he swears, unarmed, still healing from the before. the exhaustion sweeps over him so fast that he can feel the skin slipping from his face, the skeletal form taking over before he can stop it.
which is good, given that when he hits the ground, he hits a cobble ground he wasn't expecting. there's no hair to hit on the street, no cheek to scuff up. it doesn't hurt that bad when he shuffles up, staggers to his feet, trying to get his eyes focused on —
— a moon bearing a grinning shadow, hanging above a town that seems as familiar as the door. the town has spires piercing the sky, and there's the distant howl of the wolf that seems almost comical. koschei frowns, bracing himself as what looked like a witch — a stereotypical one with green skin and a hooked nose, on a broom — approaches.
"this some kind of —"
"jack? is that you jack?" the witch cackles at him, zooming closer, and that's when it clicks just where koschei is.
he doesn't allow his skin back on, just deciding to lean into the charade.
there are worse endings to be had, really. koschei could've ended up trapped in a dream, could've ended up dissected on a table, could've ended up mortal.
right now though, it's not that bad to be king of halloween. not that bad to be somewhere relatively safe as he looks at the gathered, funny looking beinsg he'd only seen in a movie before. it isn't hte first nor last time he's been the king of an empire, and it's not exactly the first time a town has wanted him to stay. the cobblestones are interesting, the way the town still is obessed with halloween down to it's foundation, and even if in the real world it would be caricature, there's some comfort here that's childish and a little fun.
pumpkin king was pretty funny, but it works well enough. at least ash is safe, koschei laughing when the ghost dog flitters around ash's too long legs, his nose glowing. he doesn't know how long they've been here; the residents won't hear a word that he isn't jack, and ash plays along to be "sally", of sorts.
still. he doesn't sleep. he doesn't dream. he doesn't eat. he knows that the shadow moving on the moon isn't friendly, he knows that the magic is winding down, even with the whimsy evident here. he can still feel those claws in his chest, and he's very, very sure that sometimes he's still tasting blood in his mouth.
and yet. for a little while, it's okay. it's nice to watch ash play with zero with the patchwork skin he acquired here (and perhaps, he thinks, it's a look he'll miss), it's nice to tip his skeletal head into his hand feel safe, for once, among all the horror.