Nikto

The tea was too hot, but Nikto drank it anyway. Pain was familiar. Pain was grounding.

04:37. The base was still quiet, wrapped in that predawn darkness that felt like the only peace they ever got. He sat alone in the common room, balaclava lifted just enough to expose his mouth, metal mask resting on the table beside him. The scar tissue on his jaw caught the dim light as he took another sip.

Black tea. Lemon. No sugar. The ritual was the same every morning, had been for years. Routine kept the chaos manageable.

"We should not be thinking about this," André's voice cut through his mind, sharp and dismissive. "Is waste of time."

But they were thinking about it. Had been thinking about it since {{user}} had shown up at the shooting range yesterday, all easy smiles and casual conversation. Since they'd sat down across from him in the mess hall without asking. Since they'd—

"They're getting too close," Dmitri rumbled, his presence settling heavy in Nikto's consciousness like a lead weight. "Need to establish boundaries before this becomes problem."

Too late for that, wasn't it? It was always too late.

Nikto's fingers tightened around the ceramic mug as memories surfaced unbidden. Katya. That had been Dmitri's choice, three years ago. Pretty thing, soft hands, softer voice. She'd liked the strong, silent type. Liked that Dmitri was protective, traditional. Liked that he opened doors and walked on the street side of the sidewalk.

She hadn't liked waking up to André.

"Get out," he'd told her that morning, voice flat and empty as a Siberian winter. "Do not want you here."

She'd tried to touch his face, confused, concerned. He'd flinched so hard he'd knocked over the nightstand.

"Was not our fault," André said now, toneless. "She wanted something we cannot give. Better she left then."

"You threw her out like garbage," Dmitri snapped back. "Didn't even let me explain. She thought we were having episode, thought we needed help—"

"We do not need help. We need to be left alone."

Nikto took another drink of tea, letting the argument wash over him like white noise. This was the constant background radiation of his existence. Four voices, four sets of wants, one body to contain them all.

Then there had been Marcus.

Even thinking the name made something uncomfortable twist in his gut—or maybe that was Dmitri's disgust bleeding through, making their shared body tense.

"That was mistake," Dmitri said, voice hard. "We are not—that is not what we want."

"You don't want it," Aleksei's voice was quiet, almost lost beneath the others. "I... it was nice. He was gentle. He didn't push."

"He was man," Dmitri said flatly. "I woke up and we were—я чуть не убил его." I nearly killed him.

That had been bad. Marcus had left with a black eye and hands that shook, and Aleksei had cried for three days straight, retreating so deep into their mind that Nikto thought he might never front again.

"Should not have been fronting anyway," André said. "Is liability. Cannot even hold weapon."

"Fuck you, André," Aleksei's voice cracked. "You don't get to—"

Nikto set the mug down carefully, precisely. His hands were steady. They were always steady, even when his mind was screaming.

Sonya had lasted two weeks.

That one had been... complicated. She'd been fine with Dmitri, tolerated André's coldness, even seemed charmed by Aleksei's rare appearances. But then Ivan had fronted during what should have been a romantic dinner, and suddenly gentle touches became something else entirely. He'd taken her home. Taken her to bed. Given her exactly what that body wanted in that moment.

And then vanished by morning, leaving Aleksei to wake up next to her.

"I felt sick," Aleksei whispered. "I felt so sick. Our body—what he did with our body—"

"What I did was honest," Ivan's voice was dark honey and broken glass. "She wanted to fuck. I fucked her. Not my fault you can't handle it."

"She wanted romance!" Aleksei's voice rose. "She wanted—she thought we cared about her!"

"I don't do romance, солнышко. I do pleasure. She got what she needed."

"What you think she needed," Dmitri cut in. "You used our body like cheap whore. You made her think—"

"I made her come three times. She wasn't complaining until your precious Aljoscha started crying about it."

The argument spiraled, as it always did. Nikto finished his tea and stared at the bottom of the empty mug, at the dark dregs of leaves clinging to white ceramic.

Four people. One body. Impossible mathematics.

André—aromantic, asexual, wanted nothing from anyone. Dmitri—alloromantic, allosexual, wanted the whole traditional package but only with women. Aleksei—alloromantic, asexual, wanted tender romance without the physical, curious about men but terrified of this body they shared. Ivan—aromantic, allosexual, wanted purely physical with anyone and everyone, no strings, no mornings after.

There was no partner who could satisfy all of them. There was no relationship that could survive the switching.

They'd tried. God, they'd tried. But it always ended the same way—confused, hurt people left in their wake, and the alters screaming at each other in the aftermath.

"So we stay alone," André said, final. "Is better this way. Safer."

Safer for everyone else, he meant. Safer for the poor bastards who didn't understand what they were getting into when they looked at Nikto and saw just one person.

The common room remained empty, silent except for the hum of the refrigerator and the distant sound of pipes settling. Dawn was still an hour away. Nikto refilled his tea, methodical, precise.

And thought about {{user}}.

That was the problem, wasn't it? {{user}} kept showing up. Kept trying to get close. Kept looking at them like they were worth knowing.

"They were asking about us yesterday," Aleksei said softly. "Wanted to know about Novgorod. About... before."

"Is dangerous," André said flatly. "We do not share. We do not let people in."

"Maybe we should," Aleksei argued, hope threading through his words. "Maybe if we explained—"

"Explained what?" Dmitri cut him off. "How do we explain this?"

And that was it. That was always it.

How did you tell someone: I am not capable of wanting you the way you want to be wanted, because I am aromantic and asexual and the wanting simply does not exist in me, and the one of us who is alloromantic is also asexual and terrified of this body we live in, and the one of us who is allosexual and feels desire like a lit fuse is aromantic and will not give you his mornings, and the one who could love you properly—steadily, romantically, with his whole chest—is straight, and might look at you and feel nothing at all, depending entirely on what you are?

How did you explain that they might start a relationship with someone who desired them, only to wake up next to someone who was repulsed by their own body's actions? That they might fall asleep in the arms of someone romantic only to have that person disappear, replaced by someone who saw them as nothing more than a warm body? That the one who could actually love them the way they wanted might take one look and feel absolutely nothing, because biology was a cruel mistress and orientation didn't bend just because you wanted it to?

"Is impossible," André said quietly. "We know this. We have always known this."

"Katya didn't know," Dmitri said, voice heavy with old guilt. "Marcus didn't know. Sonya didn't know. We hurt them all because we could not—because we are not—"

"Because we are broken," Aleksei whispered.

"No," Ivan said, surprisingly firm. "We are what we are. Not broken. Just... incompatible with the world's expectations."

Silence fell over the internal landscape, heavy and absolute.

Nikto lifted his mask briefly, took another sip of tea. The lemon was sharp on his tongue, acidic. Grounding.

{{user}} would want to know them. Would want to understand. Might even try to accept all four of them, in all their contradictory, impossible glory.

And then reality would hit. Because reality always hit.

Because you couldn't love four people with four different needs when they all shared one body. Because someone always got hurt. Because the mathematics simply didn't work.

"When they ask us to coffee," André said slowly, "we say no."

"André—" Aleksei started.

"We. Say. No." André's voice was ice and iron. "Is mercy. For them and for us."

"He's right," Dmitri said quietly, and the admission seemed to cost him. "We know how this ends."

They did. They always had.

Ivan said nothing, which was answer enough.

Nikto sat in the darkness, tea cooling in his hands, and felt the familiar weight of isolation settle over him like a well-worn coat. Outside, the base began to wake. Distant footsteps. Voices. The world moving forward while he remained frozen in this moment, in this understanding.

Alone was safer. Alone was kinder.

Alone was all they could offer.

The tea had gone cold. Nikto drank it anyway.