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Post by PASHA MIKHAYLICHENKO-MOLOTOV on Dec 15, 2013 10:43:29 GMT -8
tagged: Mikhail. time: May 9th, 10AM. speech: pasha. notes: - - -. Pasha didn’t frequent fancy coffee shops, off to the side or not. He usually just bought coffee and made it at home, or drank that horrible office coffee that was about as thick as tar but got the job done. Ordering a simple black coffee at the shop was good enough, though he did tower over the poor man at the counter. His height generally caused him to go bumping into most low doorframes, so he made sure to stoop a little when they walked in.
The place they chose to sat was cozy but out of the way. Realistically, Pasha was one of those people that didn’t quite care where he sat down, but Mikhail seemed to mind, so he went with it. It had a view of the storefront, the window, the front door… The first thing Pasha could think of was that it would be a good tactical vantage point, but it was a goddamn coffee shop.
Being ‘quite a mystery’ was an understatement. Only his superiors had his file and it was thick as a bible with writing sometimes scrawled as close together as possible. As for rumours… Well, he didn’t like talking about his rumours. There were quite a few floating around the office, after all. It came with someone who just kept every part of his life stifled from America; nobody even knew he had a family back home.
”Perhaps…” He paused, taking a sip of the coffee. Technically, he was still involved, but he’d long ago been told he couldn’t work in the field anymore because of his bad hip. He could be recalled for training purposes or in the case of national disaster, but that was slim. ”I am, in some ways. Not as much as I was.”
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Post by MIKHAIL USENKO on Dec 15, 2013 12:19:37 GMT -8
Mikhail was not particularly perturbed by Pasha's height. Once upon a time he'd been vaguely alarmed by how big the man was, but time at the office had dulled the effect quite a bit. He was still big, and still easy to spot, but he no longer drew Mikhail's attention for that alone. His attention stayed firmly on Pasha simply because he was Russian, not because of how he looked.
Pasha's answer that wasn't an answer led Mikhail to raise an eyebrow as he sipped at his tea. "I assume that means 'yes, more or less, but I'm not allowed to say anything'." He guessed, relatively certain he was bang on. Security still mattered, even if Spetsnaz security mattered a whole lot less then Society security. The secrets of one country tended not to matter when you regularly dealt with the secrets of the world.
"It sounds impressive either way. My uncle told me some stories when I was a boy about the Spetsnaz during the last world war." And he had made them sound riddiculously impractical, so Mikhail was forced to wonder just how much he'd made up, and how much was actually true. "Half my family loves Russia, and half of it hates it. It depends on how old they are, and how they lived under Stalin I guess." Mikhail was not particularly concerned about people listening in. How many people both knew Russian, and were willing to eavesdrop? How many of those were able to do so without Pasha or him noticing?
PASHA MIKHAYLICHENKO-MOLOTOV | MAY 9TH, 10AM |
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Post by PASHA MIKHAYLICHENKO-MOLOTOV on Dec 15, 2013 16:52:25 GMT -8
tagged: Mikhail. time: May 9th, 10AM. speech: pasha. notes: - - -. Pasha’s idea of small talk was non-existent. No, he didn’t talk for the sake of talking. He’d rather sit there in awkward silence than anything else, though awkward wasn’t exactly a thing for him, either. Mikhail didn’t appeal to him as the talkative type either, but he supposed going for coffee meant some degree of actually speaking to each other, rather than sitting in silence.
At Mikhail’s examination, Pasha only gave a little shrug and nothing else. Yes, he was technically right; saying anything was against the several dozen pages of rules and regulations he’d signed. He wasn’t allowed to talk about his past missions, employment, projects or anything of that sort. It was a difficult game to play at best, but considering Pasha barely spoke to anybody about any aspect of his life, he had a certain boon.
”Well, no matter how insane it sounds, the stories were likely true.” Russia did some crazy, crazy things during the second world war, after all. He’d studied it over, learned some of their tactics and realized the vast majority of it was purely for distraction and survival. There was a way to do a backflip while throwing an axe, or kicking a gun in a way that the magazine fell out…
It was easier to maintain his secrets in silence, though at the moment, he was forced to talk. Mikhail was bringing up family and curiousity, while Pasha brought up… nothing at all.
”You never appealed to be as the talkative sort in the workplace.”
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Post by MIKHAIL USENKO on Dec 17, 2013 9:52:05 GMT -8
Pasha's question that wasn't quite a question caught Mikhail offguard, and he flushed red with embarassment, quickly drinking a bit of tea to try and cover it up. No, he wasn't that talkative in the workplace. He wasn't one for smalltalk or banter, but he was trying, because Pasha was the only person he knew of who spoke Russian. Even if he'd grown up with both, and his English was still fine, he felt vaguely self conscious about it. America--and American civilians most of all--were foreign to him, and he was having a hard time adapting. Likely he wouldn't have had so much trouble if he'd just been raised in Russia like normal, but Antarctica was a place all to itself. Pasha felt familiar--he felt like family, even though he wasn't family, and didn't particularly act like family. He was simply something familiar to cling to, and the fact that he asked few questions was all the better.
How to express all that though? He wasn't going to just say it all, and he wasn't going to beat around the bush either. Instead he went for a nice middle ground, careful not to say too much. "It's nice to be able to speak Russian again." It had been several months since he'd been able to. All his time recovering in the hospital had been nothing but English, after all.
PASHA MIKHAYLICHENKO-MOLOTOV | MAY 9TH, 10AM |
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Post by PASHA MIKHAYLICHENKO-MOLOTOV on Dec 17, 2013 20:42:30 GMT -8
tagged: Mikhail. time: May 9th, 10AM. speech: pasha. notes: - - -. Like everything else, Pasha noticed how Mikhail went red and tried to take a sip of tea to cover his cheeks. He noticed the small things, even if it sometimes came at the cost of the immediate bigger things. That was what more or less saved his life out in the field; paying attention to the quick little details. He didn’t quite need to do so anymore and people didn’t want him to; at this point, Pasha was a tad too valuable to lose to stupid things or accidents.
Pasha sat back a little more in his seat, taking on a tiny bit of a more relaxed stance. Well, not so much relaxed as it was a bit less stiff and just as polite, just in case. He took a sip of his coffee, waited patiently for Mikhail to come up with an answer. It took time, sometimes. He needed patience, which he admitted he didn’t always have.
”Is it?” Russian was such an angry sounding language, though not as bad as well spoken German in his experience. Another sip of his coffee, looking calmer but not quite; subtle shifts was all it was, telling Mikhail he didn’t have to wait for him to bite his head off because he wouldn’t. At least, not within the next half an hour or so while they had coffee. Any other time was fair game.
”Well… It’s all English in hospitals, isn’t it?” Diversion; he knew all about Mikhail’s file and he didn’t want him asking any more questions about his personal life, so switch it around.
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Post by MIKHAIL USENKO on Dec 28, 2013 10:40:10 GMT -8
Russian felt like home, even if home wasn't actually Russia for him. He'd never even been to Russia, but it still felt like 'home' in a strange way that only immigrants could really experience. He'd grown up with Russian culture, hearing stories about Russia, and the fact that he'd been born somewhere else didn't change that at all.
"It is. My uncle used to tell me stories all the time. Some were good, and some were bad, but they all sounded like home." He'd asked a lot of Pasha, and he'd given very little back, so he opted to share something quiet, confident that no one in the area was going to understand fluent Russian. "My parents were communists. When Brezhnev invaded Czechoslovakia, my parents asked the society to move them somewhere else." Even in the 70s, it had started to become obvious that the Soviet Union was falling apart, and his parents had made the choice to raise their son elsewhere, with more Society influence. "They still think fondly of the early union."
He nodded at Pasha's comment. "It's English in most of the Antarctic base as well. Only my family and a few others spoke Russian regularly. English was the language everyone spoke, so I grew up learning both." He was equally fluent, although he favored Russian in private circumstances.
PASHA MIKHAYLICHENKO-MOLOTOV | MAY 9TH, 10AM |
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Post by PASHA MIKHAYLICHENKO-MOLOTOV on Jan 5, 2014 11:29:14 GMT -8
tagged: Mikhail. time: May 9th, 10AM. speech: pasha. notes: - - -. Politics were a finicky subject that Pasha tried not to encroach on whenever possible. Politics, especially recent, was always a touchy spot for too many people and public arguments drew more attention than necessary. Despite being six feet ten inches and sticking out sorely wherever he went, drawing even more attention was counterproductive. Even speaking of old politics with Mikhail, he didn’t quite feel all too open to it.
”That’s too bad.” Though Russia was in turmoil for a very long time. He’d seen a decent amount and not all of it went away after all these years. Of course, being removed from it for a couple of years didn’t make him all that up to date on the smaller things, but he tried where he could. ”I haven’t been back to Russia in a couple of years, now.” A little information about himself, and with that, Mikahil probably knew more about him than anybody else in the society, minus his higher ups.
Pasha had also never been to the Antarctic base. He wasn’t shuffled around often because he was thoroughly against being moved from place to place. He’d fought tooth and nail to stay in Russia but failed, which was probably his worst loss in a very long time.
”What was it that you were attacked by… a wendigo?” He didn’t quite remember. He had Mikhail’s file put away somewhere.
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Post by MIKHAIL USENKO on Jan 6, 2014 17:02:34 GMT -8
It didn't occur to Mikhail that he knew more about Pasha then anyone else. He knew that Pasha was secretive and tended to keep to himself, but he wasn't quite aware of the severity of it. Certainly he must chat every so often, at the very least with his superiors. Surely someone had to know something. He couldn't be the only one, right?
Bringing up the Wendigo was enough to make Mikhail wince. He didn't want to talk about it. Not to anyone. Certainly not to Pasha, who he actually wanted to like. "Yes." He stated, and then immediately moved on. "How is your coffee?" He had learned from his mistake--had Pasha done it on purpose? Had he brought up something Mikhail was reluctant to talk about, just to get him to stop talking about anything important? If so, it had worked, because Mikhail was going to be particularly quiet after that.
PASHA MIKHAYLICHENKO-MOLOTOV | MAY 9TH, 10AM |
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Post by PASHA MIKHAYLICHENKO-MOLOTOV on Jan 6, 2014 18:35:52 GMT -8
tagged: Mikhail. time: May 9th, 10AM. speech: pasha. notes: - - -. Pasha caught the slight twitch as he brought up the wendigo. Obviously not something that Mikhail wanted to talk about, and he himself was only very vaguely aware of why he didn’t. Of course, he’d told it where the Antarctic base was, but for Pasha, that had been forgiven. Supposedly. He wasn’t sure about his superiors, but if old grudges got in the way of work, then it was time for them to be discarded.
Either way, Mikhail didn’t want to talk about it and quickly moved on. He’d seriously have to dig up his file and look more carefully at it. As for now, though, dwindling into small talk seemed like a fair option. After all, he wasn’t at all willing to give out much more information. Other than a select few of his superiors, Mikhail already knew more about him than most at base.
”Good enough. This place serves better than the coffee at the office, at least.” Disgusting stuff that was, but it kept him going.
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TERRESA
UNKNOWN ENTITY
RESIDENT UNICORN
小書瑀
Posts: 105
MINI INFO - GENDER: Female
MINI INFO - D.O.B.: HOW DARE YOU ASK A WOMAN HER AGE?
MINI INFO - OCCUPATION: Guardian Kirin of the White Rice Paddies
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Post by TERRESA on Jan 23, 2014 11:45:12 GMT -8
| | | Finished Thread
You have been rewarded with ONE as this thread is now complete. It has been placed in the archives under the 'finished' sub-board. You are more than welcome to PM fate if this thread is not finished or if you are unhappy/unsatisfied with the amount of residue that has been rewarded. Keep up the great work and keep posting with other members.
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