The Dog Has Eaten My Bisexual Action Hero

I set myself up with a pretty insane writing schedule these last few month. In November I wrote Lords of the Gutter, basically in two and a half weeks. In December I wrote Tinsel Is Like Bondage For Trees in only slightly more time. Both projects ran way way over their estimated word count @_@ Both met their deadlines.

This month the project was The Freelancers: The Mercenary and unfortunately this one is not going to meet its deadline :( I've hit a good pace with it... I'm probably about half way done. I really really like the plot so far :D

But I've been busy with work and lingering logistics from my move last month, which has seriously cut into my writing time. Add to that the fact that-- despite my best attempts to make this my no-fucks-given project-- the Freelancer's series is very detail-oriented. I keep getting sidetracked researching completely obscure things *lol*

Anyway ... to tide you over, here's a little preview :)

Moscow was constantly sprouting off buds, growing like a weed over its own bones, regenerating, redividing. It was different from when Yuri was a child; different even from the last time he'd been here. And yet still unquestioningly Russian in all it manifestations.

As a person with many manifestations himself, Yuri could appreciate that. The remarkable consistency of Russian aesthetics-- aristocracy with a touch of starvation-- was a model he had the outmost respect for. His own multiplicity did not have much in aesthetics. His only constants were violence and deception.

The door to Ake's shitty dive bar swung open. A burst of cool air, unaffected the humidity of summer, wrapped around yet another belligerent low level mobster, gambler, or common drunk. Barely worth a polite acknowledgement. Even as the footsteps came ever closer and Yuri could see the toes of the man's boots.

Mm. Yuri's eyes were watery, the edges felt sticky, but through the fog of drunkenness he could still make a few easy deductions. Not mafia, even low level. Those were not shoes you could buy in any Russian store and they were not nice enough to bother importing.

Foreigner. And Yuri understood what that meant. He pulled himself up the rolled his head back and forth, hoping to project the right image of himself-- aloof, slovenly, not worth the trouble to mess with.

Then his eyes settled on the face and he knew all was lost.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Wreford?”

Beckett Wreford was an Australian arms dealer. Not a friend, sometimes an ally, usually a useful source of potential employment. Yuri was in the business of matchmaking between those in the know and those who wished to be in the know, between spies and informants. Wreford was in the business of arming one side with kickbacks from the other. Their interests were sometimes aligned.

But right now … Yuri was on sabbatical. No more spy games. No more crime rings. He was going to spend at least half of his savings on alcohol until he was either over Tyler Dewar or his liver gave out.

It seemed like a good idea. Wreford would only screw it up.

The arms dealer took off his hat, made a show of wiping his brow and frowned at the label-less taps sticking up in front of him like a row of carnival levers. “Any of these worth drinking?” he asked.

“No. Go away.”

If only it was that simple.

Wreford shifted his weight, pretend to study what he might have thought was a menu written on the wall but was actually a list of most recent sports results scribble out in chalk. He spared Yuri only a glance, which Yuri supposed was to make him feel small and irrelevant. “Well then...” Wreford turned to Akim Kubanovich and ordered a whiskey in Russian that made Yuri flinch. The old bartender replied they had none left, but naturally that wasn't part of the conversation on whatever shit Berlitz tape the arms dealer had been studying.

Wreford ignored his own ignorance and sat down. Obviously he was not going away.

“Whatever it is, I'm not interested,” Yuri grunted.

From the corner of his eye he could see the staged surprise. “Maybe I just came to see you?”

“Fuck off.” The longer Yuri stayed here, the more comfortable his face pressed to the bar top became. If only the rippling weak vowels of Australian accent would go away Yuri might actually be able to pass out.

“Dear friend, dear Yuri … I heard you were in a sad state and I couldn't keep my feelings to myself anymore. I know how you are. I know what you like. I know what you've longed for all your life. Now it's time to confess what I've been wondering since we met, when are you going to take me home with you?”

...wut?

Yuri lifted his head off the bar and glared until Wreford's image came back into focus. Was it was worth the effort to threaten Beckett Wreford's life? The man wasn't gay. Not even close. The barrel end of Yuri's Makarov digging into his thigh should put an end to anymore cute, teasing references to his sexuality.

“Sorry?” he said instead. He was drunk, his aim would be shit. He would intend to blow off Wreford's balls and instead put a hole in his head. Tragedy. Ake's beautiful new floor would be ruined again.
When he looked back up there was something stuck in Wreford's mouth. Dark brown, it bounced up and down like a conductor's baton as he muttered. It took a shrug and a gesture to the glowing end of Yuri's cigarette for Yuri to figure out what it was. Wreford was looking for a light.

Yuri almost handed it over to him. Then he thought better of it and leaned in, glowing orange embers offered up only if Wreford dared get close enough. A sort of noxious kiss, the tips of their cigarettes pressing up against one another while they both breathed heavily in each other's faces.

“You bastard.” Wreford laughed, pulling away and belching a huge cloud of smoke that smelled like incense. “Can't take a joke, can you?”

“Maybe I just don't appreciate your sense of humor?”

“And after I took great care to track you down.”

Yes, back to that. What did an arms dealer want with him? Surely some people found Yuri's skill useful, but few found him useful enough to search for specifically--

Tyler was such a person. The thought of it made Yuri sad. He shot back the rest of his gin and pretended the tears on the edges of his eyes was just from the irritation of hard liquor.

It worked, Wreford grunted at old man Ake “I'll have one of those.”

And then, he seemed to lose interest in his flirtation. “I'll pay you good money.”

“To take you home with me?” Yuri drew a throatful of smoke in and held it as he pondered this shift in conversation. Not even Wreford would carry a tasteless joke this far. “I'm not that type of guy.”

“Ah, but I need the type of guy you are. How else am I going to navigate Kolbasna?”

Kolbasna… of course. So that was it. Not home, home. Transnistria. Kolbasna, a tiny town close to the Ukrainian border. Barely a spec on the population map. No sports teams of worth. No tourist attractions. Only one thing of interest at all.
“You want to raid the old Soviet weapons depot,” Yuri concluded.

“Not raid, raid sounds so violent. I have a deal there: six surface to air missiles, twenty assault rifles perhaps more. You never know what surprises these bureaucrat-gangsters throw in when you buy in bulk. Easy deal, but I've never dealt directly in Transnistria and I'd feel better having a local with me.”

“No way.” Yuri had not been a local in a very long time. And those streets … the memory of the war had solidified in his mind. If he saw those roads without bodies would he feel like something was missing?

A return would be surreal, philosophical, heart breaking … all the things Yuri didn't want anymore.

“And why not?” Wreford said. “When was the last time you visited mommy? She must miss you so badly.”

“My mother is dead.”

If he expected Wreford to be shamed by the faux pas, he was deluding himself. Men that sell AK-47s to child soldiers shake off minor breaches in etiquette like dead leaves. “Her grave then,” Wreford grunted.

“I don't know where that is, if it exists at all.”

“Perfect. You can go find it. The deal will take only a day or two to complete. Plenty of time to catch up and trace your roots.”

No. His answer was no. As much as he had once wanted to know what had become of his parents-- As much as he had hoped Anton would come back with news... those days were gone. He had buried his need for closure at Anton's funeral.

His parents were dead, his guardian and mentor was dead, his lover was far away serving a life sentence in an American prison. A romantic fantasy of undoing trauma of wars in his past was not going to improve anything about his future.

Beckett Wreford could go to hell.