Aqua Vitae [ Viktor / Public ]

[[ CAN’THELPMYSELF ]]

There was a loud grunt as the Russian awoke, rubbing his head and scowling slightly, reluctantly opening his eyes and looking around at the padded cell for a moment before closing them again. Well, it definitely wasn’t a dream. Not that it had been a dream the last... Damn, how long had he been there now? He either plain couldn’t remember or had lost count; he wasn’t really sure which was the more favourable of the two, when it came down to it.

With a groan he forced himself up off of the floor, arms trembling like leaves as the stressed to haul the Muscovite’s weight off of the padded floor and up into a sitting position, failing once before he managed to get up. Though the sudden searing pain in his head told him that his hadn’t been the best of ideas as he raised his hands to his temples to massage them, the light shining in from the windows not helping very much at all; even with his eyes shut tightly.

Once the pain had stopped a little, he sighed, glancing down at his gut. He was certain he’d lost weight since he’d arrived here (whenever that was); since they’d taken away his vodka he’d not felt like eating. He hadn’t been hungry, at all and it had gotten to a point where he’d needed to be force fed or he’d starve—At least they said he would... It felt like he could last much longer without food than they were suggesting he could...

Could he? It wasn’t really like he could test it. They wouldn’t give him a chance to.

Maybe the lack of vodka was just making him delirious—And he really would die if he didn’t eat. He just let out an annoyed sigh, running his hands through his hair before rubbing at his head violently, trying to remember just why he was stuck in here. That was much more important than this stupid headache. He knew they’d said he was ‘mentally ill’ and that thinking he was a country was ‘all in his head. He knew it wasn’t. There was far too much that had happened for it to all simply be in his head, he’d never been that creative with these things—and if he were he’d have not been interested enough in history to read about it in that much detail.

He simply sighed, sitting up and shielding his eyes from the light as he leant back against the wall, closing his eyes with a scowl. And besides, you didn’t get scars from things that didn’t happen. His face contorted after a moment as he remembered what was one of the few reasons he was in this stupid high security section came back to give him a pleasant reminder as the need to drink began to rise again. Viktor just muttered incomprehensibly to himself, rubbing his neck absentmindedly.

He really needed a drink.

"In a phrase, I believe I'd call this 'poetic justice'," he murmured, swirling the contents of the glass in his left hand. The ice cubes in it clinked underneath the tattoo of the prison of crosses, under the reminder of the Soviet purge. The clink echoed around the empty hallway of the third ward. It was a very obvious sound, to the two men there--or at least, it should have been. It was the clink of a cocktail that'd been prepared solely for the sake of tormenting a man dying of thirst.

"How does it feel to be locked up like an animal, Vicky?" He stretched his ring finger--the one marked by the cross--so that the knuckle cracked, another sound whose volume the hallway distorted. "Really, though, don't you feel lucky? You have a proper bed--the cushioned floor--it's not crowded, it doesn't smell like anything unsavory, the temperature is agreeable... They even feed you properly, when you allow them to. Why, I should think there'd be nothing in the world you could possibly want for, in such a relatively nice prison." He swirled the ice again, playing it like wind chimes.

He glanced down at the floor, where he'd propped up a book. Against the book leaned a shard of a broken bathroom mirror--just one of the shards he was, one by one, buying a certain Austrian's trust with. From the reflection, he could see most of the state that the capital was in. If he'd never known the true depth of joy, he came awfully close to it now, finally getting a revenge that'd been due for an entire century.

Best served cold, indeed--or would 'on the rocks' be more appropriate, in this case?

"You know, it's a shame, I can't get real cream in here," he took a sip of the White Russian, "But I can get milk, which is acceptable. I can get quite a lot of things; it's not so terribly hard, if you know who to go to." He set the glass down hard, next to the mirror, and just out of reach. The sound was downright raucous. But it did not drown out the cold bitterness in his tone, "That's a skill I learned in Kresty, you see."


((DID YOU THINK I WAS JOKING, WHEN I SAID HE'D DO IT? /shot))

Viktor would have been happy to feel all but one familiar voice at this moment in time; it would have been a welcomed distraction from the result of six hundred years of alcoholism stopping abruptly (well, at least he hoped it would distract him a little). But that one person he didn’t want to see was right outside the door, though to be fair, he probably would have been almost happy to see him, had he not been here for the sole reason of tormenting him. The sound of the drink sending another pain shooting through his head; though this time it was accompanied by the feeling of his throat sticking together.

He glanced over at the small gap under the door, face contorting into a glare as the former capital began to speak again. He’d already learned to block out pretty much everything he said, but it was so hard at the moment—and his voice. It felt like someone had stuck his head between two grindstones.

He ground his molars together, rubbing his temples to try and lessen the pain in his head. At least he didn’t have to think too hard about translating and just speaking in Russian.

“I’d like you to fuck off and go be a little shit somewhere else,” He snarled, glaring at him in the mirror shard. He paused for a moment to lick his lips and swallow the saliva that had built up in his mouth before continuing, “What, are you expecting me to apologise—Beg for your forgiveness? Or do you just want to see me suffer and just want me to sit here and be miserable. If it’s the first, it’s not going to happen, so don’t even bother. If it’s the second, I’m already miserable and lonely, so fuck off if you’re not going to be good company, I’m not in the mood for it.”

He couldn’t help but stare at the drink. It was painfully tempting to try and grab it—but knowing Piter he’d either pull it back before he could even come close to or had just put it out of his reach. He rolled onto his gut, trying to look through the gap at the base of the door to stare up at him, only making himself feel more nauseas.

“Too bad it didn’t cure you of being a spoilt little shit,” He face contorted into a sneer as he spoke, “it’s very unbecoming of a capital—Oh wait; you’re not a capital anymore, are you, Pyotr?”

[[ I WAS HOPING YOU WERE SERIOUS-- /KILLED]]