Chapter Text
Ivan closes the door of their quarters behind him, leaning back against it with an exhausted sigh. He lets his eyes fall closed, just for a moment, and inhales. He loves the smell of this place, the closest thing they have to a home of their own. Their lives mingle behind this door, and Ivan likes being on this side of it. It’s balm to his soul at the end of a day running around after the General.
He opens his eyes, watching Fedyor’s face light up when he looks at him. Balm to his soul, indeed. Fedyor’s heart always speeds up when he catches sight of him, even after several years of marriage. It makes Ivan feel like a king.
Fedyor casts aside the book he’d been reading and smiles at him from the couch. That smile has the same stomach-flipping effect on Ivan as always - but tonight the thrill it gives him is laced with trepidation. Because Ivan knows Fedyor’s not going to be smiling in a few seconds’ time. In fact, he suspects he’s going to be pretty pissed off.
He clears his throat, bracing himself. Disappointing Fedyor always makes him feel wretched.
“You . . . know how I promised you an early night tonight?”
Fedyor’s smile vanishes. He rolls his eyes and scowls.
“Ugh, Saints, here we go,” he groans, hauling himself up and walking towards Ivan with an exaggerated dragging of his feet, shoulders hunched.
Despite the circumstances, Ivan finds himself battling a smile. He finds petulance in anyone else irritating, whether it’s genuine or feigned. But when Fedyor puts on a show like this, it’s sweet, and funny. Pretty, just like everything else about him.
“We have a job,” Ivan takes his hands, and pulls him close.
“Oh, for f- what does he want now?!” Fedyor slumps his forehead onto Ivan’s shoulder mopingly.
“He wants us to take his box at the Os Alta Opera.”
Fedyor straightens up and looks at Ivan, puzzled. “Why in the world?-“
“Svetlana Vasilieva will be there. He wants us to watch her, see who she talks to. He suspects she’s conspiring with Zlatan.”
Fedyor scoffs. “I doubt it. She’s hardly political. Her interests have never extended much beyond eating caviar, drinking champagne and bedding obscenely young men. I can’t imagine her rocking her own pleasure boat by turning conspirator.”
Ivan is inclined to agree. Vasilieva is eye-wateringly rich, having been widowed at twenty-five by a much, much older husband. It’s hard to imagine Zlatan could offer her anything she doesn’t already have; or anything she’d be prepared to risk it all to get hold of. He suspects the General’s paranoia is fuelled mainly by the fact that the woman hasn’t donated her body weight in gold to their coffers yet. But Ivan would be willing to bet that that’s more about her loving her money than hating the Second Army.
“Hmm. Either way, he wants her watched tonight.”
“He could do that himself, surely? A nice night at the opera. I mean, he must enjoy it. Even the General wouldn’t have a permanent box just for spying.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Ivan answers honestly. “Perhaps he knows he’ll draw attention if he turns up, thinks we might be less conspicuous. I don’t know. Anyway, I didn’t ask. It was obvious we weren’t getting out of it.”
“Fine,” Fedyor groans, pulling away.
“I’m sorry. Look,” Ivan pulls him back towards him, feathering his cheeks and his nose with delicate kisses, “it’s only a few hours. We just have to sit there, watch Vasilieva, and then we can come home, and . . .”
He kisses the sensitive skin just behind Fedyor’s ear, enjoying the way it makes him shiver, the blood rushing to his cock. It’s one of his many tricks for mollifying Fedyor, and it never fails.
“Oh, I love it when you play dirty,” Fedyor gasps, leaning into the kiss, exposing more of his neck to Ivan’s mouth.
Ivan’s heart drums when he feels him hardening behind the fastenings of his breeches.
The truth is, he’s every bit as frustrated by this as Fedyor is. It’s been so long, agonisingly long, since they’ve spent any time together that didn’t involve work or sleep. They’d both been looking forward to a night together tonight, off duty, talking and making love. Privacy. A chance to relax. Both are rare commodities in the Little Palace.
“Anyway, you might even enjoy it,” Ivan suggests, pulling away from Fedyor’s neck reluctantly, stroking a stray lock of hair behind his ear.
Fedyor looks sceptical.
“You like opera,” Ivan purrs into his ear.
He feels Fedyor smiling broadly, cheeks hot, pulse dancing at the memory. The last time he’d come back to quarters to find Fedyor listening to opera he’d had Ivan fucking him on his desk to the crescendo of an aria within minutes.
“And it’s one of your favourites. The romantic one with lots of vengeful fathers and everyone dies of a broken heart.”
“You might have to narrow it down,” Fedyor deadpans.
Ivan fishes the gilded, embossed programme from the inside of his kefta. “‘Pyotr and the True Sea’,” he reads, before throwing it aside. “And it’s Olga Litvinenka in the lead role. You like her.”
Fedyor’s eyes widen. He finally looks a little placated.
“I do like her,” he allows. “Not that it matters. It’s not as if we could refuse the General on grounds that the opera in question isn’t a favourite of mine, is it? For the record, I want it to be known that, Olga Litvinenka or not, I think this is a fool’s errand, and I would prefer to be spending the evening in bed with you . . .” he presses Ivan against the door again, kissing him, wet and greedy, “. . . making you come.”
Ivan whimpers. Damn him. He knows that Ivan loves to hear him talk like that. That he loves his dirty mouth.
He can feel that familiar, maddening need rising in his chest again.
Ivan grabs at his arse, pulling him even closer, deepening the kiss. They still have half an hour before they need to be in the carriage. Perhaps . . .
Fedyor pulls away with a cheeky wink, grinning devilishly, as if he’s read Ivan’s mind.
“So. Dress kefta!” he claps, sauntering towards their bedroom, leaving Ivan resting against the door again, breathing, trying to think about dull, stagnant things, anything at all to dampen his own arousal.
Saints, he hopes ‘Pyotr and the True Sea’ is one of the shorter operas . . .