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Al's been here before.
It's a fucking shitty bar, the cheapest, sleaziest place you could imagine, right smack in the middle of what's certainly among the worst neighborhoods in East Berlin. This place caters to all sorts - and he does mean all sorts - except possibly people who actually want a drink, or at least a good one. There are at least seven different people within spitting distance who, if he were as squishy and human as he looked, could kill him with their bare hands in under a minute, the bartender's prison ink has prison ink, and there's definitely mold on the ceiling.
It's perfect. He loves every inch of it.
He's not an idiot; he knows exactly where he is, and he knows exactly who else knows exactly where he is. There's a certain someone who no doubt physically interprets Al's presence as a splitting headache right about now, same way as he'd feel it if the asshole decided to pop over for a beer on his soil. It's a really satisfying feeling, knowing that he's being no doubt insufferably annoying, knowing, given the time - late, late, he snuck over the wall in the middle of the night even though he could have walked right through any checkpoint and no one would have stopped him, just for the thrill of it - that he's probably waking the bastard up to the sweet tune of physical pain.
Alfred smiles to himself, wolfish, and knocks back a long swallow of whatever it is that's sitting in his glass. He asked for whiskey, but the barkeep had just kind of grunted at him and then slid it across the bar like he was personally offended by everything about Alfred - granted, he probably was, though he couldn't possibly have understood why - and, well, it doesn't really taste like whiskey. Then again, this is the Soviet Union. He's really, really not surprised.
Anyway, the whiskey - or whatever it is - isn't the point. The point is something that hasn't happened yet, and also something that has happened a million times before, in a million terrible bars in a million cities on both of their soil. The point is something that probably never should have happened, but did, and has now settled under his skin, prickling even when he isn't thinking about it.
The point is, he shouldn't even be here, but the thrill of it is killing him by inches.
The door opens suddenly, loudly, and the whole timbre of the room changes. It's the kind of thing that would be utterly imperceptible to the people on either side of him, except that Alfred feels more than sees that they unconsciously shift away from the door, just slightly.
He can hear the heavy footsteps, booted and pissed, the ambient noise fading away like they're the only two people in the bar. This is the best part, always. Well - not the best part.
It is pretty damn good, though.
He doesn't get more than a second of real warning before he's being spun around and hit so hard he can feel his cheek splitting open. It should probably depress him that the imprint of these knuckles is immensely familiar to his face - but then again, he'd wager the same is true of his fist and the deeply unpleasant face before him.
"Wipe that blood off your face," Braginski spits, and, much as he hates the slow, dirty feeling of it running down from the gash in his cheek, there's no fucking way he's going to give Braginski the satisfaction. Alfred bares his teeth instead, a sick parody of a smile.
"Nice to see you, too," Alfred says, his voice a cheerful counterpart to the way he's leaning back in a lazy sprawl across the bar, his eyes sharp and predatory, the blood reaching his mouth and staining his teeth. "Heard you lost your favorite toy. Sorry about that. Can't imagine why he'd want to run away from you."
The people around them - technically Braginski's, of course, but not even close to it in point of fact - look a little uncertain, but not enough so that there's any way they've really noticed anything. Maybe they can smell the blood in the air, and that's why they're suddenly shifting and murmuring, nervous. But nations can get away with a hell of a lot right under human noses, and right now, Alfred's never been happier about that.
Braginski's mouth twists, a soundless snarl.
"You say that like you don't know where he is," he scoffs, his fists clenched at his sides. For now, it's an idle threat.
Alfred laughs, delighted and derisive. "I don't!" he says cheerfully. "What, you think I did it? I have more important things on my mind, you know."
He sees the way Braginski seizes on that, curses himself for leaving the opening. Braginski's eyes are full of a vicious light, and his lips curve into a mocking smile.
"Of course," he says, voice dripping with faux sympathy, rough and cruel. "Vietnam. How silly of me to forget." He pauses, his eyes noticeably raking down the way Alfred is spread across the bar for the first time, but he doesn't acknowledge it - doesn't even react - just presses on. "Getting left at the altar by the North, that can't have been pleasant for you."
Possibly the most obvious blow he could have dealt. Alfred lets it roll off of him like water, or tries to, anyway.
"They'll be back," he says, haughty. "Besides - I'm leaving the solar system. Why do I need the VC?" He pauses, pretends to consider. "Oh, right, you just landed one on the moon the other day. You gotta think bigger, buddy," he says, his voice leaking into full-on mocking as he leans back just the merest inch further and lets his thighs spread apart just the merest inch wider, the most effective taunt he knows.
It works: Braginski's eyes narrow. He steps closer, an aggressive, deliberate swaying into Alfred's space. This is how it starts. This is how it always starts.
"Been a while," Alfred nearly purrs, under his breath in an attempt to force Braginski to lean in closer. He doesn't - too stubborn, something they have in common - but Alfred doesn't doubt he hears anyway. A nation's intelligence network doesn't get to be half as good as either of theirs without a little bit of enhanced hearing. "Almost thought you forgot about me."
"I had more important things on my mind," Braginski parrots. "Besides, I've been too busy beating you at the Olympics to have time for anything like this, хуй."
Alfred almost rolls his eyes. Admittedly, he'd been pretty pissed about that - okay, fine, he's still pretty pissed about it - but he was winning in all the ways that mattered, wasn't he? Forget the fucking Olympic Games.
He leans forward, pushing up and out of his splay until he's very much in Braginski's bubble, their breath mingling, hot and heavy. Braginski smells like freezer burn and soot and steel. It's kind of fucked up, Alfred thinks even as he traces over the line of his jaw with hungry eyes, that that smell makes his dick twitch with interest in his pants, but, well.
"Nothing to say?" Braginski breathes, his voice pitching farther and farther down. It'd make a lesser man shiver, probably. "Is sports what it takes to get you to shut your fucking mouth?"
Alfred leans in without preamble and bites him, closing his teeth sharply around Braginski's earlobe. "Not all of us need to talk all the time," he says, almost too quietly, right into his ear. "Jesus, you'd think you were the chatterbox."
Braginski doesn't have anything to say to that; he just growls and locks one hand in a firm grip on the back of Alfred's neck, then leans in and takes his lower lip between his teeth, a sharp pain that sends a jolt through Al's entire body.
They're still propped up against the bar, and there are still people all around; they're starting to shuffle and shift away, leaving an uneasy space, though none of them could possibly explain why, if asked. This is honestly a big part of the rush, for Alfred - this kind of public power struggle, right under the noses of the rest of the world. It's amazing - it makes him feel like his nerve endings are crackling with electricity, a million tiny sparks arcing over his skin like lightning. He groans low in his throat at the feeling, his eyelids slipping down as he wraps one leg around Braginski's to draw him in closer, shoves the other between his thighs.
That gets him the hand at the back of his neck pulling roughly at the fine hairs there, forcing him to tilt his head back, jaw up so Braginski can kiss him deep and dirty and mean. Alfred can taste new blood from his lip, mixed up with the slightly staler tang left over from his cheek, and from the way his tongue rasps roughly over the spot where the inside of his lip is oozing slightly, Braginski can taste it, too.
Alfred's man enough to admit how hot he thinks that is.
He knots his own hands in Braginski's scarf to crush him in even closer; the scarf's a touchy area, always has been, but Braginski just growls and bites down hard on Alfred's lip all over again, a searing burst of pain where he was already bleeding, so he wouldn’t even dream of letting go.
His leg is pressing up against a hot hardness, and every time Braginski shifts against his thigh Alfred can practically feel his pulse. It's a heady feeling; Braginski's still too much in control of himself to rut against him the way Alfred wants him to, but it's early yet.
"Fuck," he breathes, voice catching on the fricative. He favors Braginski with another bloody grin, trusting the way his eyes gleam behind his glasses, knocked slightly askew, to be infuriating. Then he casts a glance around the room, where human eyes are skidding over them, drawn by a force they can't explain but finding nothing but a sense of creeping disquiet and darting away again. "We giving them a show?"
Braginski glares around like every human in the joint has personally offended him. Actually, given what he's done to this city, this country, Alfred wouldn't be all that surprised. Still, they obey easily enough; all Braginski has to do is gesture almost lazily with one hand and they're all getting up, orderly, vacant, and filing out into the street.
The sudden quiet is deafening; suddenly their breathing, already loud, seems impossibly so. Alfred leans back in, licks into Braginski's mouth, filthy, and relishes in the way he can hear every last little thing without distraction or distortion. Braginski pulls away, though, moves further south, sinks his teeth into Alfred's throat even as he pulls fiercely at his hair, breathing heavy and wet onto where he's broken the skin of Al's throat, now.
He tamps down on the noise that threatens to bubble up and out, but only barely. "Oh," he breathes instead. "Oh, shit."
Braginski laughs darkly. "Always so talkative." He leans back just enough to spit on the mark he's left, red and burning and something Alfred's going to be pretty worried about hiding, come morning. "And I haven't even got my cock in you yet."
There's really nothing to do but smile back at him. "Well," he snipes back, voice more steady than he was honestly expecting, "have to keep myself entertained while I wait for you to get a move on."
"You little shit," Braginski says, and it's not fond, it's miles from fond, it wouldn't know fond if fond slapped it in the face, but at the same time, it's the closest thing to fond Alfred's ever heard come out of the bastard's mouth.
Then, of course, he unceremoniously shoves two fingers between Alfred's lips and, with the other hand, fumbles at his pants.
Al sucks on the thick, calloused digits with maybe a little more force than necessary, and definitely a little more teeth than necessary - Braginski pinches him cruelly on the hip in retribution even as he slides Al's pants down over his thighs and knees and, blithely avoiding Alfred's dick, which has now bobbed up to rest against his stomach, muscles his legs as wide as they'll go, Alfred half-absentmindedly kicking off his shoes and getting his pants the rest of the way off to help.
Then, one-handed, Braginski lifts him up onto the bar properly, which, Alfred's pretty strong himself, but that doesn't mean it doesn't send his blood rushing south to be lifted like that, like he's nothing. He gives a particularly hard nip to the two fingers still in his mouth in response, and maybe that's what earns him the light slap on the lips that he gets when Braginski pulls them out, apparently deeming them wet enough.
"So fucking mouthy," he all but snarls, even as he's spreading Alfred's cheeks apart and leaning down a little to spit, hard, on his hole, sudden and fucking filthy, and they could still be walked in on at any goddamn time - they won't be, but still, they could, and Braginski's sinking his thumb into the tight, twitching ring of muscle, and he's so hard he honestly thinks if he were human, he'd probably be dead.
"Hurry the fuck up," he whines, and Braginski grunts in response, but hell, it works, he gets both fingers all at once, a fucking ridiculous burn that he absolutely relishes. It's too much, too much; he can feel himself tensing no matter how much he tries to relax, and it's not like Braginski's fingers are exactly small, okay, he's a pretty big guy and his hands reflect that, and it's too much in so many ways, but it's not enough. Alfred doesn't really think that it could ever be enough.
Good fucking thing I'm not human, he thinks nonsensically, and bites down hard on his lip to stifle a sound, sending blood welling up all over again.
Braginski's ruthless; there's not nearly enough slick, just spit, and he scissors his fingers wide, clearly relishing the way Al writhes and pants and can't stop himself. There's actually a little flip-top bottle of lube in Alfred's pants pocket - he's nothing if not prepared, and it isn't cocky if you know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the night is going to end with someone else holding you open like this - but his pants are on the floor, and, honestly, he's more or less beyond caring. There's a sharp feeling of over-fullness just from two spreading fingers, and he wants more of it, doesn't want it to be anything close to easy.
He realizes with a jolt that Braginski's saying something - he's lost the first half of it, but it's not hard to pick up midstream: Alfred catches "So fucking tight," and "Can take more, can't you?" and then something in Russian, low and sort of garbled, and these days his Russian's pretty good but he can't make heads or tails of it like this, both of them already descending into half-coherence.
"More," he snaps, bratty, and Braginski grins at him, toothy and sharp, and gives him what he asks.
There are three fingers dragging in and out of his hole now, slow and rough, spreading and pressing insistently inside him, and he grabs tightly at the edge of the bar because that's better than hanging onto Braginski's arms, which, unfortunately, was his first instinct.
It doesn't take much longer. "Ready?" Braginski asks, but he's already pulling his fingers out and wiping them on his pants leg, already working his button and then shoving his pants just far enough down his thighs that his cock bobs out, so it's clear that he's not waiting for Alfred to actually answer. It doesn't matter; Al's more than ready, groaning and propping himself up on his elbows and reaching out for Braginski, this time, grabbing at his hips with one hand and his own cock with the other, slowly stroking himself a few times as he shivers, waiting.
Braginski doesn't say anything, just pushes in with a low grunt, even the tip of his cock hovering at the edge of too much. Not like Alfred would ever say so, but he's enormous, thicker than anyone's dick really has a right to be, and the feeling of that pressing him open is, frankly, unreal.
He shifts his hips, trying for a better angle, and feels every fucking centimeter until Braginski finally bottoms out, breathing heavily and leaning over Alfred, his eyes screwed shut, his mouth dropped open. Under the hazy veneer of pleasure and pain both, Al feels a certain pride; they do this because it feels good, sure, because it's stress relief, because they ride the edge of love and hate, sometimes, but really they do it because it's fucking amazing to watch each other fall apart. He loves - loves, loves - watching Braginski fall apart.
"You're so," he gasps, half a thought, and Braginski snarls at him, a less-than-verbal warning, before he starts to move, large hands clasped tightly on Alfred's thighs, holding him spread apart and vulnerable and strong.
It's over almost too quickly. Alfred more or less forgets about the hand he's got on his cock until he's coming, jack-knifing up from the surface of the bar with a hoarse yell and spilling all over his hand, his clothes, Braginski. Braginski, who makes a distinctly appreciative noise and doesn't stop fucking him for one second, just keeps going even though it's too much, now, if only just - Alfred's too sensitive, but he doesn't say anything, because too sensitive or not he loves every second of it.
He lets his eyes slip closed and leans back, focusing on the feeling, the drag of Braginski's cock at the edge of his hole, the smell of him, salty-sweaty-hot.
Then all of the sudden Braginski freezes for a half-second, then groans, loud enough that it makes Alfred's skin prickle, and he knows what's coming just before he feels it; Braginski shudders to a stop and covers Alfred with his body, pins him down to the bar with his full weight, and comes. Alfred whimpers a little, can't help it - the fullness only gets more intense, and he can feel everything, it seems like, hyper-aware of the heat and wetness that's a perfect counterpoint to where his own come is cooling on his skin.
They stay like that for a short while, silent except for their heavy breathing. Then, when Braginski's panting has slowed to something reasonable, he pulls out maddeningly slowly, not quite able to conceal the appreciative sound in the bottom of his throat when his cock finally slides all the way out and his come falls out with it. Al can feel it, creeping down out of his hole, between his legs; he shivers and squeezes his eyes shut.
Then the warm heat of Braginski's body draws away. Eyes still closed, he hears the sound of a zipper, then footsteps, crossing the room. And then the door swings open and shut, louder than it seems it should be, and when Alfred opens his eyes again, he's alone.
He lets his head fall back onto the bar with a thunk and sighs, lets his lids droop again and spends a few moments just breathing, steadying his heartbeat until he feels completely in control. Then, finally, he sits up, looks around, takes in the details of the still-empty bar - the light flickering in the corner of the room, the omnipresent smell of nicotine, the way the clock on the wall behind him, now that the room is truly silent, matches up with his heartbeat. When his mind is as clear as he thinks it's ever gonna get and he can think about Braginski without immediately feeling heat, he stands, gathering up his pants where they're still lying on the floor and heading to the dingy bathroom to clean up.
Already he can feel the slightly guilty pull of next time.