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It was late, and he could not sleep. It was not the sort of insomnia that plagued him periodically, long stretches of night terrors that left him gazing at the ceiling, entrapped by his own existential woes. He wondered if he would ever make it to death,

Tonight, it was simply restlessness, and old memories. He had been recruited in two thousand and eleven. Lately, he'd been thinking about the girl that had brought him to Deus Ex: despite his posted notice, no one had responded to his inquiry of information.

Sometimes, Kostya wondered if she'd truly existed at all. Perhaps she was a fever dream hallucination: her whimsy was so unnaturally bright in a city of grey and gloom, a burst of rainbow-vanilla-joy-warmth-hope.

She had been the embodiment of hope.

He went to the plastic bin he used for storage, gingerly removing everything inside of it until there was a single article of clothing left at the bottom. For a quiet moment, Kostya quietly stared at it, lost in the past.

In due time, he pulled out the knitted scarf, winding it deliberately it around his neck. He wound his fingers in it, tangled in red and orange and violet, heart gripped with regret.

If only he had woken up sooner. Maybe he could have known her.

Morose, and unlikely to sleep any time soon, Kostya found his way to the upstairs kitchen, quietly rifling through the fridge for something edible.

He started, turning to see who would keep him company at such a late hour. Perhaps it would be Obadiah or America, someone who'd request a meal from him: something to keep the idle hands and thoughts at bay.

But instead...

He blinked once, then again, because the kitchen had been the sickly-green that accompanied fluorescent lighting, the kind that looked unflattering cast on anyone.

But instead, Kostya's world was grey. It washed over every surface and infiltrated every crevasse, bleeding the world dry of its colour.

"Is a dream? Or is really you?" Kostya asked, quietly, his voice suddenly hoarse. He sounded like a child: someone lost and a little bit afraid.

She looked so familiar-- she felt so familiar-- but Kostya knew what shadows looked like, and the girl was among their ranks. He did not move away, but he didn't move any closer, either.

This wasn't right. Forlorn, he looked at her, because it sounded just like her. It was snowing, like it had been in Tyumen the day she'd found him.



"You are not ..." Kostya wound his fingers tighter into the scarf around his neck, as if a simple cloth item could anchor him more firmly to the realms of reality. "Konstantin," he offered, softly. Gently, even as snow melted in his hair and against his glasses.

After a moment, then two...

Kostya offered her-- or the fog, or the grey, or perhaps all at once-- his hand. It trembled in the air, because things were different, now. For the both of them.

"Vere you a hunter?" he asked, still softly, "or vere you a dream?"

"I am hero now," Kostya said, "and ve vere friends." But perhaps, his words would not have any impact on her. It was like watching code run in an infinite loop. It would keep going and going in circles until it inevitably crashed. Kostya didn't want to know if he wanted to be around for that singularity.

But she was so sad, and it was wrong.

Her shape was starting to look like the snow still falling around them, washed out and fuzzy.

"Of course," Kostya answered her. "Of course."

Fog, poignant sorrow, and a tray of cookies: that was all he was left with. Kostya fingered the scarf where she had touched it, and it had almost felt like being back in that alley, the chill of a cold spring day, and--

This situation would arise, time and time again: when presented with an object of questionable safety, dangled in front of his face, Kostya could not resist it. It was, in this case, on a literal platter before him, and it smelled of something kind.

He was compelled.

With a hesitant hand, Kostya reached out to pick up a cookie-- chocolate chip, with thirteen chips in all, still a little soft in the middle-- and took a bite.

"Vill not," Kostya said, bemused, taking another cookie. He had seen this man before, and knew him vaguely as Allan, he of constant Pikachu vigilance. (America's words, more or less.)

"Uh. Some spill. " He pointed to the ground, where a few drops of milk had dripped onto the floor.

It was best not to think about Allan's pyjamas.

Well. ...Allan tried, at least. That was more than several other of the inhabitants of the island could say. Kostya thought of the hoard and all its filth, shaking his head once to clear it.

"Did not," he said, taking the last cookie and clutching it tightly before the other man could take it. "They vere being here, vhen I..." Returned from a far off memory. "Came upstair." One slow, owlish blink. "Am Konstantin. Nice to be meeting you."

Kostya visibly winced as Allan used his nonsense words. It was hard enough to understand English, let alone the gibberish that the exuberant man seemed to be so fond of.

"Vhat is 'manga'?" he asked, and then, in a turn of uncharacteristic rashness, Kostya attempted to shove the entire cookie into his fast as fast as possible.

Not this time, Allan.