#(Maks and Vova crouched somewhere in a forest - and all that blood was never once beautiful it was just red)

[harri-etvane]

Angsty sentence starters: #17

Vova/Maks

<3

"Tell me what I can do to make you stay?"

Vova's voice is soft in the darkness of the tiny bedroom, one hand idly running through Maksym's short dark hair, thumb tracing a slow circle against the other man's temple. His question is patient, but there is a shard of need that runs through it, savagely glittering in the faint light.

He cannot imagine facing this, all this - without Maksym by his side. The thought is terrifying in its enormity.

Maksym swallows, reaching up and linking his fingers with Volodymyr's free hand.

"Tell my commanding officer I don't need to be rotated out. Tell him I don't need-- I don't want a break.."

Vova shifts a little, sighs and Maksym looks up at him from where he lies, his head in Vova's lap.

"Want and need are two different things, love."

"I need you.. to be with you."

"Yes- but you need a break, too." His own exhaustion is mundane now, everyday - he can push it to one side - but he knows that Maks feels it too, even if he doesn't wear it in the same ways and Vova cannot be the one to drag him to the limits of what he can endure.

"Come away, with me?" Maksym blurts it out, the thought ridiculous really; the idea that Vova could, would even, drop everything - the country, his people - just to go away for a while.

Volodymyr laughs, soft and sad, and regret circles in Maksym's stomach then, hating the sadness that he has called up. Vova's voice is ever quieter as he sits in the dark, confronted again with the enormity of this struggle.

"Maybe some other time."