[ He's grateful that his senior in rank (and, possibly, by a couple of years, though it's hard to tell with someone that attractive) has voiced that it's okay for him to rest—it would be unthinkable, at least to a lowly interrogator from Stalinist Russia, to allow himself to be so visibly casual and at ease in the presence of someone who outranks him and outaccomplishes him so greatly. He should really be standing in the commander's presence, and he would be, were it not for their shared status as captives of their own government.
He suspects that the real reason for his expected alertness is simply stress—how does a man relax when his fate is uncertain? He'd never seen anyone sleep soundly in the Lubyanka except for the bone-tired men on the right side of her heavy steel doors. Vasiliy slides his feet from his shoes, smiling rather meekly. ]
Thank you.
[ He slips under the neatly folded covers, though it's hard to feel at ease lying down under blankets a meter away from a Hero of the Soviet Union. Does he know that, Vasiliy wonders? How long until he knows the rest of it and his false (but pleasant) image of Vasiliy Yegorovich the First Responder is replaced by the unappetizing truth?
He lies still for quite some time, eyes closed and mind in a flurry of activity, before sleep somehow finds him, his body at last giving out, unable to keep itself alert a moment longer. He gets maybe four hours like that before his eyes snap open in the dark, coughs and the creak of the opposite mattress jarring him awake. At first he thinks the man's just got a cough, that he's sleeping more lightly than usual because of the sheer amount of stress he's under—but then the noises begin to take on an intensity that isn't right. ]
no subject
He suspects that the real reason for his expected alertness is simply stress—how does a man relax when his fate is uncertain? He'd never seen anyone sleep soundly in the Lubyanka except for the bone-tired men on the right side of her heavy steel doors. Vasiliy slides his feet from his shoes, smiling rather meekly. ]
Thank you.
[ He slips under the neatly folded covers, though it's hard to feel at ease lying down under blankets a meter away from a Hero of the Soviet Union. Does he know that, Vasiliy wonders? How long until he knows the rest of it and his false (but pleasant) image of Vasiliy Yegorovich the First Responder is replaced by the unappetizing truth?
He lies still for quite some time, eyes closed and mind in a flurry of activity, before sleep somehow finds him, his body at last giving out, unable to keep itself alert a moment longer. He gets maybe four hours like that before his eyes snap open in the dark, coughs and the creak of the opposite mattress jarring him awake. At first he thinks the man's just got a cough, that he's sleeping more lightly than usual because of the sheer amount of stress he's under—but then the noises begin to take on an intensity that isn't right. ]