[grimli] gore and glory [niska]

Brightly coloured eyes stared at the gloomy store front in Knockturn Alley. It was not the first time that Grigoriy had spent an hour or so, standing in the shadows of the building across the street, just watching. He was sure it was something masochistic in him that had him so focused on this one place. On this one person. He knew it was a waste of time, just being there, but that didn't stop him. Grigoriy would go out of the country, do his jobs, and come back to England, but still find himself making slow steps to this same corner, and to this same place. And he waited. He wanted to get a glimpse of the man inside, wanted to see what he looked like, as if that was going to let the boy get into his innermost thoughts. Grisha was foolish, and he was stupid, but at least he'd admitted it to himself.

If muggle airport security had asked where Grigoriy had been for the past 14 days, the young man would have smiled and simply said 'Sightseeing in Italy'. However, he'd portkeyed, floo'd and flown back into the country, so he didn't have to deal with pesky muggles and their stupid questions. He'd been on a job for his boss, retrieving something that belonged to the Skeleton. Surprisingly, the man was met with little to no interference from the Italians who guarded their turf so fiercely, and made mention of that to Oogie as soon as he'd been able to debrief. After the meeting, Grisha had intended to go home, and just sit in his tub until his skin pruned, but he'd walked past the store again. And his hand almost crushed the handle of the leather briefcase he had in his hand, full of artifacts that he'd picked off of another personal task he'd fulfilled. He'd stood there, almost frozen, before ducking into his familiar alcove.

Before he could even breath the word regret, his feet were moving him towards the door. It was like he couldn't stop them. He was screaming in his head for his fool body to stop, but he kept walking. Kept moving. He opened the door, and walked into the shop, gazing around at all the artifacts, quietly cataloging everything around him, before he even dared to look at the figure sitting at the desk. Amber tinged eyes met amber, and Grigoriy refrained from cringing, in fact straightening himself out, so he could feel stronger.

With slow, deliberate movements, Grisha set the briefcase on the desk. Turning it, so it opened towards the other man. He flicked open the latches, and pulled the case open. In the soft confines were three books, all Mayan, all on war magic. He'd tried to read the books, but he had no patience for translating and working old magic. Hell, he didn't even need to steal the books, but something had taken over him, and he grabbed the set. ...He guessed this was the reason. He looked upwards, and arched a brow. And he spoke. To this man. To this Zukov. To this uncle he'd never met.

"I heard you purchased rare books."
@Niska Zukov

Niska was falling asleep. The ex-mercenary was sitting casually in the shop, his feet propped up on the wood of the desk as he leaned back precariously in his chair, only two wooden legs touching the floor while the other two were in the air. In his right hand he held a sickle blade, and in the other hand a buffing stone. The empty shop was filled with the sound of scraping as he carefully ran the stone over the edge of the blade, spark flying haphazardly across the table as he did so. He held the blade level with his eye, shutting one of them as he examined the sharp edge. Niska blew off the layer of sediment accumulating across the top of the blade and continued sharpening it.

Today as another one of those slow days, or at least slower than most days. The last week he had occupied his time with sharpening and cataloging all the blades in the shop, of which there were many. Things were slowing down now and Niska took the time for some much needed rest and relaxation. His mind smoothened out like a water-worn stone as he listened to the sound of metal on rock and felt the steady rhythm calm his mind. This calm was good and the last thing he wanted was anything damaging it.

So when he smelled blood coming around the corner, his contented smile turned into a frown. He’d smelled this person before, a couple times, just hanging around the shop like they were casing the place or something. The smell was familiar as hell too, but he couldn’t place it cause it was just a bit off. At first Niska had been preparing for a robbery, but whoever it was just liked to stand there. But not this time apparently. He could hear footsteps outside and see the reddish-grey magic before it even opened the door. Then it did, and a figure entered his cluttered shop. The smell of blood was strong and almost overpowering as the young man approached the front desk.

Niska didn’t look up as the boy set a briefcase on the table and opened it towards him. Niska’s eyes went from the knife to the trunk and he lazily sat up, a big hand picking up one of the books. He opened it up, examining the inside. He rubbed the pages between his fingers, lifting it up to his face to sniff and lick it experimentally. Tasted old. Old magic was always good. “Not bad,” Niska said gruffly in English, flipping through the pages. “Where did you get these—“ Niska looked up at  boy and suddenly had to do a double take. Those eyes, that nose, that mouth. If Niska didn’t know better, he’d have sworn he was looking at a younger version of Adelei, the version of him that bullied Niska in their school years. He cleared his throat and turned back to the book, his mind trying to recover.

It wasn’t Adelei, couldn’t be. The magic was similar, too damn similar, but not…Adelei. This person, this boy who looked like a carbon copy of his brother, smelled like him too. Blood. Metal. Craziness. But…Adelei didn’t have children. Niska frowned to himself, closing his eyes in tired realization. No children that he knew of. By the kid’s accent he was Bulgarian, probably about twenty or so years old. Twenty years ago and his idiot brother was running all around eastern Europe. As much as Niska didn’t want to believe it, his mind put the details together for him. This was Adelei’s kid. Goddammit.

Niska looked back up at the kid, keeping his voice even as he spoke in English. “I’ll take them. Give you forty for the whole lot, how’s that? Good,” he answered before the boy could respond.  Niska opened one of the drawers in his desk and pulled out a pouch of coins. He counted four stacks of ten and handed them to the kid in a separate bag. “Nice doing business with you.” Turning away from the boy, he picked the sickle back up and begun to sharpen it again. As he did so, he spoke in a low voice, his Russian rumbling quietly as he did so.

“Anyone ever tell you that you look a lot like your father, kid?”

This man was bigger than Grigoriy had thought that he was going to be. No matter how many times he’d tried to track the man, it was like he lost his scent almost immediately. He’d known that this task that was closer to him than any other that Boss Bones had given to him was going to be harder than anything he’d ever don’t before. He hadn’t expected it to be this hard, or require this much of his energy. Grisha had tried to get any info that he could on Niska Vukov, but it was as if all of his contacts were too afraid to even whisper his name.

“You licked it…” He started, confused, before his gaze connected completely with the other mans. Grisha had always thought of his eyes as a unique feature, something that even when his mama hated him, she would mention them as if they were a gift, not a curse, like his face seemingly was. But it wasn’t as unique as he thought it’d be. Sitting in the matured face were amber eyes so much like his but so different that pierced him into his inside parts. He swallowed thickly, feeling words bubble up in his throat but unable to process them. Him, the one who could laugh and joke while he was plunging a knife into someone’s hand, unable to have conversation? Was this a weakness he’d not known about?

Then Niska didn’t look at him, and he felt this surge of hate and pain. He’d been dismissed way too many times to allow this one man…Taking in a slow breath, his fingers stretching out as wide as they could go before he dropped them to his sides, he dismissed that line of thinking. Grisha had not come here to be accepted into open arms by this man who didn’t know who he was. He’d just came to see. He came to hear. He didn’t come for some miracle upon miracles, so he didn’t know why he has this sick feeling in his throat. Then Niska began to rush the transaction, not even allowing him to speak. He almost snatched the money up, and shoved the bag in his pocket, as he watched the man go back his his prior task. Grisha was forgotten. Again.

Without a word, he spun on his heel, and began to walk towards the door before the low growl of the voice echoed behind him. “Anyone ever tell you that you look a lot like your father, kid?” Grisha’s shoulders hunched up immediately and he froze, his hands curling into his fists. Biting his full lip almost to the point of sharp pain, Grisha stared blankly ahead of him. He could hear his mother’s drunken voice in his ear, and he shook his head to try and get it out, but it was stuck deep. His mother’s memory always had claws. ’You’re just like your father, Grigoriy! Useless! Go ahead and roam those streets if you want to, and end up dead. Should have dumped you on his doorstep and you wouldn’t have burdened me all my life. I had dreams too! You ruined them, you good for nothing shit!’

He turned so his face was angled towards Niska, a bright smile on his face, at odds with the anger already building low in his chest. “Yes…It usually never turned out well for me. I wouldn’t know myself…” And he chuckled, shaking his head. Why the fuck was he here? Was this some masochistic tendency he had to draw out?

It was freaking Niska out how much the kid looked like his dad. They looked so, so similar, to the point that Niska wondered if he had any of his mother in him at all. And then the kid turned around and smiled at him, that creepy fucking smile that Adelei always had painted on his face when he was murdering someone. He could almost hear that creepifying cackling echoing in his ears. Something inside Niska’s chest lurched and he was suddenly feeling very uncomfortable. It was weird. Supernaturally weird. If Adelei had left this kid at birth, which Niska only assumed could be the case, shouldn’t a lot of things about him be different? They were identical.

A shudder ran up Niska’s spine. That goddamn smile was too fucking creepy. He hated it. Niska hated a lot of things about Adelei right now. The ex-merc hadn’t heard from his older brother in almost four months, every since Amaranth went missing. The wound in Niska’s heart had been healing slowly, but his forgivness toward his adopted daughter merely opened up his hatred for Adelei. The mission that started all of this, that made her run off and probably get herself killed, had been one of Adelei’s. From what NIska had gathered from Amaranth’s cousin who had come by some time ago, Amaranth had been forced to take a job at a family affair, causing her to lose the only family she ever had. Whatever had gone down that night had broken something inside her. Niska was pissed as all hell at his older brother and finding out the man had left a kid twenty years ago was making him even angrier.

A big hand lifted the wand on his desk and Niska muttered a spell, summoning a chair from the dusty corners of the room to slide in front of his desk. He gestured for the kid to sit down. “I take it you never met him, then,” Niska said gruffly. “Lucky you. I don’t know what name he was going by when he met your mother, probably something real stupid if I know him, but his name is Adelei.” Niska glanced at the boy’s unsettling expression and he shook his head, though at no one in particular. “Don’t feel too bad about it. My brother never was the type to stick around and take responsibly for his actions. Hell, he killed my daughter earlier this year and I never got so much as an ‘I’m sorry’.”

Taking a breath and realizing he was being too blunt, Niska put the knife down and faced the boy head on. His voice was tired, but serious. “I hope you haven’t been holding out any hope all this time. The only thing that man is good at is killing people and fucking things up.”

For a second, Grigoriy was tempted to run. He heard that chair grind against the floor for a moment, and it scattered his higher thought processes for just a moment, but that was enough for his flight or fight instincts to flare. The smile disappeared totally from his lips, and he slid his hands into his pocket, quietly gliding over to the chair and sitting down gracefully in it. A long leg folded so his ankle was resting on his knee, and he leaned back gazing at the imposing figure in front of him. Standing had given him an advantage, he could see that now. He was in Niska’s place, in his domain. The only safe place was the exit, and he’d already escorted himself away from it.

A more natural half smile formed at his lips as he laughed, leaning back in the comfortable chair. His long fingers tapped on the armrest in imitation of some classical song whose title was just beyond his mind’s reach. “Met him? In person?” He shook his head, messy hair falling to shield part of his features from view. “No. I didn’t. Saw his ghost in my house a lot, or so my mother says. I know his name.” And he hated it. His mother more times than not would call him his father’s name when she was drunk, and he was 14 and growing. It was the most confusing time of his life, when he’d get hit with rage that wasn’t meant for him.

A thick brow lifting slowly was the only reaction that he gave to the revelation that his father killed his cousin. Grigoriy wasn’t so sure on the concept of family, other than  Mishka and Oogie being the only idea of family that the boy really had. “I’m sorry.” He said, looking up at Niska through his lashes. “For all that counts. I…think I might have liked having a cousin.” He licked his full lips, flinging his hair back from his face, using his fingers to run through it before staring past Niska. He didn’t know why he felt this bit of emptiness, but he did. Was that where his cousin was supposed to go? How did grief work when you didn’t know the person existed?

Grisha began to laugh, a low cool sound that shook his shoulders slightly, and shook his head from side to side. His palm rose up to rub at the brand on the left side of his chest where his guards had put molten metal so he’d remembered where he came from. “Hope is an expensive commodity where I come from. Cant afford it on dreams and wishes when money makes the world go around and puts food on your table.” He pursed his lips, grinning again. “And at least we have one thing in common. I enjoy fucking shit up.” And he laughed again, knowing that if Nessa could see him, she would know something was wrong. Would feel that strain of hysteria bubbling from his chest.

“…Niska, right?” They hadn’t even exchanged names. How impolite.

A drink. Niska needed a drink.

As he listened to the younger man speak, Niska reached into one of the many drawers in his desk and placed a heavy bottle of firewhiskey on the table. Then two clinking glasses joined it. He uncorked the bottle, frowning deeply as he did so. He was thinking about Adelei and what that stupid son of a bitch could possibly be doing right now that Niska was staring his nephew in the face and already he knew more than his brother did about his own son. Niska poured out the whiskey into the two glasses, offering one of them to his nephew. Nephew. Regardless of what the kid did with it, Niska took a sip of his own.

“Yeah I can imagine that,” Niska said, raising and eyebrow suspiciously. So he knew Niska’s name then? Guess it wasn’t a complete accident that the kid walked in to his shop trying to sell some books. Sneaky. Niska was always wary of sneaky. How did the kid know his name? He doubted Adelei would have mentioned him to the kid’s mom. Kid must be some hell of a detective to track him down. Or Niska wasn’t as well-hidden as he thought he was, which was an equally uncomfortable thought.

Niska shook his head heavily. “Hope you’re at least a bit smarter than your dad, then. He had a knack for ruining everything he touched, including my daughter.” His mind kept going back to Amaranth. To that last job. To Adelei, who had sent her in knowing she was risking the only family she ever had. She’d chosen Adelei over her family and now she was dead. His mind was wandering again, like ti often did. Loss wasn't new to the ex-mercenary, but a stupid one like this was always rough.

“All she ever tried to do was survive, you kow? Then she had the bad luck of having your fool father fall in love with her.” At Grisha’s odd expression Niska remembered. “She wasn’t mine by blood,” he explained. “In fact your father met her first about three years ago. She’d just graduated and was a mess. I was the one that taught her how to fit in with normal people. She was my kid.”

Sighing heavily, Niska glanced at the boy in front of him. Kid probably had a pretty terrible lot, seeing as his dad musta hit the road the moment he was born. Most killers and people who smelled as strongly of blood as this kid did, didn't usually come from a good family. “I ain’t all that big on family myself,” Niska said with a shrug. “But I also ain’t opposed to it just cause I left home early. If you’re gonna stick around, you’re welcome to come in here and take a load off. I’m not very friendly but I always have booze.”

Grigoriy curled his hand around the glass, resisting the urge to crush it in his hands. He wanted to feel the glass dig into his palm, feel the liquor burn down the wounds just so he could feel something other than this gaping emptiness that wanted to devour everything around it, good or bad. He could lie and say he’d never wanted anything from his father. At first his desire to have his father around was a selfish desire to have him for himself, and not share. But as he grew, it’d been so his mother could have something else to focus her hate on. He’d always wondered that if Adelei was around, would his mother have been different? Would she have been less bitter? Less hateful? Would she have actually seen Grigoriy for himself and not this twisted reflection of a man who’d she’d focused all her energy on?

In the end, it didn’t matter. Grigoriy had grown up in a less than warm home, and his energy had been focused on getting attention wherever he could. It’d worked, but not to his advantage. It’d painted a big target on his back. It’d landed him in more trouble than it was worth, and he had the scars, both physically and mentally to show for it. He flexed his long fingers around the glass, the only obvious sign of his discomfort, before taking a slow sip of the whiskey, humming slightly when he felt the pleasure-pain combination of the burn sliding down his throat. Grisha closed his eyes for a moment, before sitting up so it was obvious he was giving Niska his full attention.

“Anouk used to tell me that he was a consumer of souls. That one only had to let him in a crack in the door, and he would slither in like smoke and take take take, until there was only a husk left. Nothing has shown me different. Your kid, birth or adopted or not…had it good. She had something you know…A hint. Something to cling to before she died.” Better than anything Grigoriy could claim to have, and he felt this jealously that he did not even want to touch whisper things in the back of his mind. There was no reason for the boy to feel this way about a person that wasn’t even alive anymore, but he found that gaping pit of want grow just that wider. The man hadn’t even bothered to see if Grigoriy was worth the time before discarding him to the pit.

“He used to be the boogey man Anouk tried to scare me with when I was a kid. I’ve seen…worse. I’m not…I don’t need family. Blood has always betrayed me.” But like a puppy coming back after his master had kicked him out of spite, Grigoriy was limping towards Niska. Towards this mystical idea of family. Niska was big, a boogeyman himself, but he was tangible. He wasn’t throwing Grigoriy out of the door, and with the offering of a drink and conversation, this might have been the best experience with actual family he’d ever experienced. Yes, he had Mishka. He had Oogie, though he knew in his heart of hearts that the other man didn’t feel the same.Hell, he was useful. And thats all he was. Grigoriy was a cog in the machine that could be discarded at the sign of uselessness. Disposable.

“I…don’t know if I could stomach friendliness. Drinks are always good.” Lifting the glass up to the other man, he took another slow sip of the drink. “…My name is Grigoriy.” He finally said. Grisha was used to commonly in the darker circles that he ran in, and for some reason he found himself wanting to be someone else for Niska. “I might take you up on the booze.”