#DragonSlayer Debriefing: Epilogue

I still need to get to our secondary characters in a different post, but I've been working on Golden Eagle all day, so I wanted to talk about that DS epilogue...

Warning for spoilers below the photo. 

At the very end of the book, when Val and Mia walk into the Lion's Den, Val makes a very important discovery about Nik and Sasha.

I have never written a burn this slow ever, and let me tell you, it's been an exercise in patience.

Golden Eagle opens a few weeks before the Dragon Slayer prologue, so we're going to go back and see how Nik and Sasha get from brutal, mutual pining to the established couple that Val observes in the pub. Those boys have definitely earned the chance to really hash things out, bare their hearts, and finally unpack all they've left unsaid between them for decades. Lots contributed to this level of slow burn: the country and time period of their origin; the climate of the intervening years from then to now; and lots of personal baggage. Between Sasha not wanting to be a burden, and Nik guilt-tripping himself, among other things, there's a lot that's built up, and I'm really enjoying getting to hash it all out on the page. 

I mentioned on Facebook last week, and had some readers say they were surprised to learn this: but Nikita and Sasha have been planned as one of the series' main romantic pairings from the beginning. In my mind, they've always been soulmates, and I wanted to write them in a way that would provide chemistry, and hints, and pining...and then actually follow through on that. When I put out White Wolf, I kept thinking gosh, I hope people ship this, 'cause it's gonna happen!

I did it this way because I find that, all too often, romantic relationships get short shrift in action/adventure/fantasy fiction, be it on page or screen. And all you have to do is log onto AO3 for five minutes to see that readers love having these intricate, complex, compelling characters fall into intricate, complex, compelling romances. I wanted to do that here, with two of my favorite characters in the series. I wanted to write a strangers, to friends, to platonic life partners, to I-would-die-for-you, you're-my-everything, to lovers relationship for these two, and, even if it's tested my storytelling patience, it's been a joy. The payoff is so worth the wait! 

The challenge then, knowing where the relationship was headed, was not tipping my hand too early. I wanted to lay the groundwork, but be subtle as possible. I'll leave it up for debate as to whether I succeeded in that.

“Here, though.” Nikita finished the last button and stepped in close to him, a movement that seemed both unexpected and potentially sinister. He smelled of harsh chemical soap. He reached with both hands – clammy and cold from bathing – and scraped his damp fingers back through Sasha’s hair, pushing it into some semblance of order. “Hmm,” he murmured, frowning to himself, fingertips dragging against Sasha’s scalp in a way that felt shockingly intimate. “We don’t have time to cut it. Shame.”

Nikita felt a single, tooth-chattering lick of fear when Sasha leaned in and smelled the back of his hand like some strange animal thing instead of the boy he’d just been comforting on the table minutes before. He felt the hot, wet dart of Sasha’s tongue on his knuckles.

And then Sasha heaved a deep sigh and he went boneless. “Nikita,” he said, voice full of relief and checked tears. He slumped to the floor and crawled the last distance, curling up at Nikita’s side, head tipping to rest on his shoulder, letting Nikita support his weight.

Nikita sat very still, his heart pounding.

Sasha breathed a warm sigh against his neck, shut his eyes, and passed out.

He was heavier than he looked, but Nikita didn’t accept Ivan’s offer to carry him. He was worried the shift in – in scents – might wake Sasha, and then they’d have a repeat of his first outburst on their hands. He carried him bridal style, head carefully balanced on his shoulder so the boy’s face was against his throat, right where he’d placed it himself. Ivan held the doors, instead, and they left the steel tables, soldiers, and too-bright lights behind, going into the small, and thankfully empty, bunk room several feet down the hall.

Nikita tried to lay Sasha down on a cot, but his fingers clenched in the fabric of his shirt. A short spasm, a reflex. So Nikita sat down on the cot himself, slumping back against the wall, and let Sasha settle in next to him, still curled up in an impossibly tight ball of white limbs. 

“Are you hungry?” Nikita asked, and heard the growl lying just beneath his words. He’d waited too long, and now it was too late. God forgive him; Sasha forgive him.

Sashka. At another time, he would have let himself slip into a coma. But not now, not when Sashka needed him, was being…

He snipped the thought away, cleanly. He couldn’t right now. 

“Trina said they took him. Those Institute people.”

Nikita slashed a hand through the air, trying to silence him. He just…couldn’t anymore.

But Steve was a Baskin, after all, and he was good at pushing. “Grams would be glad that you two stayed together all this time. It’s good that you have someone.”

“Shut up!” Nikita roared – really roared, the snarling big cat sound punching out of his lungs, echoing off the front of the house. He kept growling, low and constant, the taste of blood filling his mouth as his fangs nicked his tongue. “I don’t have him,” he said viciously, “I lost him, and it should have been me. Why didn’t they take me instead? Why is it never me?”

“Nik,” she called toward the closed bedroom door. “You ready?”

She heard the latch click, and the tread of boots, and turned…

And felt her mouth drop open in shock.

Expressionless, Nikita stepped into the room in black skinnies and t-shirt…under an ankle-length black leather coat. Boots. Gaiters. Fingerless gloves. And perched on his head: the black fur cap with the hammer and sickle. She’d seen him like this before, in the vision Val had shown her.

Gone was Nikita the grungy millennial, and in his place was Captain Nikita Baskin, Chekist.

(**this one's him totally regressing in the face of his anguish over Sasha)

“Sashka.” He trailed his fingertips down behind Sasha’s ear, down the side of his throat, over the fluttering pulse there. “Can you hear me?”

Sasha murmured wordlessly and shifted on the bed, a tiny half-roll, wanting closer to Nikita, pushing into his hand.

“Sasha.”

His eyes opened to slits, that well-loved pale blue that should have been cold but had always been full of such youthful warmth. His gaze – glassy and unfocused – moved back and forth across Nikita’s face. He worked his jaw a moment, wet his lips. “Nik? Is it…are you real?” He made a pitiful attempt to lift one limp hand.

Nikita caught his hand with his free one, and squeezed it tight. “Yes, bratishka. I’m real. We’re going home.”

Sasha smiled faintly, rolled the rest of the way over, pressed his face into Nikita’s hip, and fell back to sleep.

A dark worry blossoming, Sasha set his fork down. What he’d managed to eat so far rolled over ominously in his stomach. “Nik. It was a suicide mission.”

Nikita studied the fake wood grain of the tabletop.

“Did you…would you have cared if you died?”

Nikita’s head lifted, eyes slate gray in the late morning light. “As long as you escaped, I didn’t care what happened to me.”

Sasha groaned. “Ugh. You are terrible.”

Nikita tilted his head.

“No, you are. Are you so– Do you not– How do you think I would feel?” His voice cracked. “If you died. Do you think I would be okay?”

Nikita went very still.

“What do you think I would do? Shrug, and say, ‘Oh well, he didn’t care if he died, so I don’t care either.’ Do you think I would find a new roommate? Do you think I would be even close to alright?” His voice shook, and it had nothing to do with withdrawal. “Or you so selfish that you don’t care what that would do to me? Or are you just an asshole?”

Nikita’s throat moved as he swallowed. “You know I don’t think that.”

“Then why are you so quick to sacrifice yourself?”

“Because I can’t…” The words grated out of him. “I can’t think when…” His chest lifted and fell, quick shallow breaths again.

Sasha did go get in his lap that time, though the kitchen chair groaned and threatened to collapse. Though there wasn’t room. He tucked his head under Nikita’s chin and was grateful for the hand that lifted immediately to run through his hair.

“I think,” he mused aloud, “we’re what they call codependent.”

A short selection of scenes, but there are more. 

I'm also chipping away, slowly, on a story (novella?) about Katya and Pyotr; about what happened after Nik and Sasha walked away from them in Russia. As much as Katya loved Nik, and Nik loved Katya...I like her with Pyotr better. He's a sweetheart, and I'm excited to get to share their side of the journey. 

Two of the men – there were six of them, total – followed her with their eyes; one nudged the other in the ribs. It didn’t matter that Katya had flakes of dried vomit on her waxed pants, that she was dressed as a soldier, her hair greasy and unwashed, the first sign of pregnancy settling in her middle: she was a woman. And these men couldn’t have been trusted with a herd of goats.

Pyotr stood in the threshold of the room she’d taken and turned his fiercest glare on them all. Admittedly, it wasn’t very fierce, young, and half-starved, and sweet-looking as he was. That’s what Ivan had always said about him: that he looked sweet.

But Ivan was dead. And Nik was gone, and it was only Pyotr now.

So he tipped his head back, and looked down his nose at them, and slipped his Nagant pistol from its holster. He pointed its muzzle at the floor, rather than the men, but the threat was clear. “I’ll be watching,” he said, in his best imitation of Nikita’s cold, commanding voice.

They hastily looked away, and Pyotr slipped into the room, and shut the door behind him. There was no lock, so he sat down on the floor with his back braced against it. At the very least, the effort of shoving him out of the way with the door would give Katya enough notice to sit up and aim her rifle at an intruder.

He’d thought she’d fallen asleep right away, or maybe even passed out, but when he let out a deep breath, she rolled over so she faced him, still cradling her rifle. The only light source was the orange glow of the setting sun through a grimy window, just enough to see the deep shadows beneath her eyes, and the closed-off look in their dark depths. Traveling over land like this, they always made camp before the sun set. There was no wisdom in hiking through forests in the dark; the wolves they sometimes heard howling at the moon were not their own anymore.

Looking at her face made something twist in his chest, and he offered her the biggest smile he could muster. “You feeling alright?”

Her mouth twitched, but she didn’t smile back. Her voice came out low and hoarse, like she’d been screaming, though she’d barely spoken for days. “You always ask that.”

The twist intensified. “And I always mean it.”

She hummed quietly, and closed her eyes. “You’re a very sweet boy.”

“I’m a Chekist,” he said, without any real feeling, and realized he’d never said such a thing aloud. He knew what he was, what he’d signed on for; knew what he’d done, in the name of a country, when really he’d only done it because it was what his brother and friends had done.

Was he a man of convictions? No. He’d sided with the Whites, because, laid out on paper beside one another, he’d liked them better than the Bolshevik-ruled world he’d been born to. But he’d been a mere follower; Nikita was the one who believed. The one with all the passion. The one who’d thought they could actually do something about this starving shell of a country they called home.

But now Nikita was a…

Was a vampire. He dreamed of it, some nights, tossing on top of his makeshift bedroll. Dreamed of Nikita, mouth and chin red with Rasputin’s blood, his skin pale as the snow beneath him, and Sasha hovering over him, his own red mouth steaming, begging Nik to live.

Was Nik like Rasputin, now? With wicked eyes, and wickeder thoughts, and a thirst for wine and women? Pyotr had only ever met the one vampire, and he’d loathed and feared old Grisha. Bile rose in his throat just remembering him.

But surely that wasn’t Nikita. Surely not…

But where did that leave Pyotr? And Katya? What were they now?

He realized that Katya had opened her eyes again, and was studying him, gaze inscrutable.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

She said, “Why are you here, Pyotr?”

It shouldn’t have, but the question caught him off guard. “You asked me if I wanted to come,” he said, stupidly, feeling even younger than he was.

“I did. But you didn’t have to accept.”

“I…” The twist became an ache. It hurt, hearing her say that. Probably she didn’t want him here. Why would she? Maybe he’d even known that, but he’d come anyway. Sheer stubbornness. Fear. Or… “Pack should stay together,” he said, without meaning to. The thought just popped into his head – but then he knew it was true.

“Pack should stay together,” she echoed, hollow. “But we left Nik and Sasha behind.”

His breath caught. He swallowed it down, forced it even. Left was the wrong word. He remembered – his body remembered, and started trembling – standing two paces away, as Nikita struggled to his feet, one arm slung over Sasha’s shoulders, the other hand pressed to a tree trunk. His eyes had glowed. The Siberian boy had clung to him, so much stronger than he looked, holding him up, murmuring low and soothing, too soft for Pyotr to hear.

Pyotr’s breath had plumed as white steam, and he’d shook, head-to-toe, stomach climbing up his throat, when Nikita looked straight at him, and his lips opened, and revealed the sharp points of new fangs. A sound had rolled out of his mouth, deep and inhuman, a growl like a tiger. He’d swayed forward, and Sasha had pressed a hand over his heart, held him back.

Nikita had blinked, and cursed, and then made a sound that was all man, and all pain. “Take her away from me,” he’d said. Ordered. “Take her far away. I can’t…I’m a monster…”

“I’ve got him,” Sasha had said, looking at Pyotr, his gaze so serious. “It’s alright. I’ll take care of him.”

Pyotr had obeyed, followed the last order from his beloved mentor and leader.

The part that had surprised him, that still did, every day, was that Katya had allowed him to.

“Nik asked us to leave them,” he said now, quiet, voice quivering as he shook. “He was afraid he might hurt us. And – and the baby.”

She flinched at the word. But then settled again. When she spoke, her voice was smooth and detached, still. “I’ve never met anyone as buttoned-up and restrained as Nik. He forces everything down, and locks it up tight. That kind of self-control snaps eventually, though.”

“He would never have hurt you,” Pyotr said, immediately, because he believed it. “Never, Katya. He’s not Rasputin. He wouldn’t have.”

The barest hint of a smile graced her mouth. “No, he’s not. But that’s not the kind of self-control I’m talking about. He stayed behind because he’s in love with Sasha. And one day he won’t be able to deny that anymore.”

Pyotr heard a quiet thump, and realized he’d snapped his head back, that he’d smacked it lightly against the door. “What?”

“Pyotr,” she said, almost sympathetic. “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice.”

“I…I didn’t…” But he had, and that was why his heart pounded. He cast a wild look around the empty, cobwebbed room, like someone – Chekists, probably – might be listening, ready to go make an arrest. “They’re just…he sees Sasha as a little brother. Like–”

“Calm down,” she urged. “No one’s listening. And God help the fool who tried to throw them in the gulag. Pyotr, look at me.” He did. She was amazingly composed. “I could tell. I don’t even know if Nik knows it himself, yet. If he knows that’s what it is. But he does. And it’s okay,” she added, when Pyotr started to shiver.

“I know it is,” he said through suddenly-chattering teeth. “And I don’t care – I don’t think any differently about him. I always thought…” He pressed both hands to his face, overwhelmed with nerves.

He hadn’t called it love in his own head, but he had known. To an extent. Nik and Dima had been close; Dima’s death had hit Nikita hard – harder than it had hit Pyotr, even. And then Sasha had come along, with eyes so blue they were pretty, and that sweet grin, and everything in Nik’s face had softened when he’d looked at him. Seeing it had felt like a shove – the sheer force of it. Could everyone see it? Was it blinding like the lights of American Hollywood?