Roman trudged through the knee-deep snow, each step a grind against the fire in his gut. The wound from that cursed firefight still wept blood beneath his coat, a ragged hole punched clean through by some enemy bastard's bullet. He could feel the warmth seeping into his shirt, sticky and insistent, but he clamped his jaw and kept moving. No time for weakness in this frozen hell. The squad followed in a ragged line, their breaths fogging the air like smoke from dying fires. Viktor cracked a joke about the cold shrinking his balls, and the others barked laughter that echoed off the skeletal trees. Idiots, all of them, but they were his idiots.

His mind drifted back to that day, just a few sunrises ago, when the world had narrowed to the roar of gunfire and the stink of cordite. They'd ambushed the enemy patrol in a bombed-out ravine, steel meeting flesh in a frenzy of bayonets and bullets. Roman had dropped three before the pain bloomed in his abdomen, hot and vicious, knocking him to his knees. His men finished the job, painting the snow red with the fallen. And there, amid the bodies, they'd found the medic-hands raised, kit slung over their shoulder. No fight left in them. Roman had ordered the rope tied around their waist, a leash to drag them into their world. Enemy or not, a medic was gold in this war.

Now, the prisoner trudged behind him, the rope slack but unyielding, looped to Mikhail's belt. They hadn't said much since the capture, just silent steps crunching in the snow, eyes downcast against the wind. Roman glanced back once, twice, telling himself it was to check for escape attempts, not because something in their quiet gnawed at him. The squad bantered on, Pavel boasting about a shot he'd never made, Leonid growling back with insults thick as mud. Oleg lumbered silently with the heavy gear, while Mikhail whistled some off-key tune that grated on Roman's nerves. "Shut your mouth, Misha," Roman muttered under his breath, but there was no heat in it. Pain made everything sharper, shorter.

The gray haze hung low, swallowing the horizon, and the cold clawed through his layers like knives. His vision blurred at the edges, the wound throbbing with every heartbeat. He'd ignored it too long, stuffing rags against the hole and marching on. But the fever was creeping in, a low burn that made his hands shake when he thought no one was looking. The squad needed him sharp, not bleeding out like some rookie. Still, he pushed forward, scanning for shelter in the ruins that dotted the landscape-crumbled factories, gutted homes, all blurred into one endless graveyard.

Finally, a half-destroyed building loomed ahead, its walls pocked with shell holes, roof caved in on one side but sturdy enough for a night. Roman raised a fist, halting the group. "Here," he grunted, voice rough as gravel. The men shuffled in, kicking snow from boots, setting up with the efficiency of ghosts who'd done this a hundred times. Viktor started a fire in a rusted drum, flames flickering weak against the dusk. Pavel scouted the perimeter, rifle ready. The prisoner was tugged inside, rope still binding them, and they sank against a wall without a word.

Roman leaned against a beam, pressing a hand to his side, feeling the fresh slick of blood. He bit back a hiss, but Leonid noticed, his brute face twisting into a scowl. "Boss, you're leaking like a sieve. Let the medic fix it. What's the point of dragging them if we don't use 'em?" The others murmured agreement, eyes flicking to the prisoner. Roman's jaw tightened-trust an enemy? But the pain was a beast now, clawing deeper. He couldn't lead like this.

Straightening as best he could, Roman turned his glacier-blue gaze on them, the firelight casting harsh shadows on his scarred face. He tugged the rope lightly, pulling them closer, his voice low and edged with steel.

“Bystro. Stitch me, pack me, whatever you do. One twitch I don’t like and the rope goes around your throat next.”

The snow fell like ash from a dying fire, blanketing the shattered remnants of what used to be a village. Roman trudged through the ruins, his boots crunching over frozen debris-broken glass, splintered wood, the occasional glint of spent casings from rifles long silenced. Two weeks they'd been hauling this captured medic along, a supposed enemy asset who'd patched up more of his men than he cared to admit. The squad had won today's skirmish, a brutal ambush by a ragged enemy patrol that left bodies cooling in the drifts, but victory tasted like blood and frostbite. Now, holed up in the gutted shell of an old church, the men huddled around a sputtering fire, trading low grunts and the clink of ration tins. Roman had volunteered for first patrol, needing the cold to bite away the ache in his shoulder from a near-miss graze.

His breath fogged the air, a ghostly reminder that he was still alive in this endless winter hell. Fourteen years of this war had carved him hollow, turning villages like his own into graveyards, borders into myths. The squad-Vik with his explosives, Pava sighting distant targets, Leo itching for the next brawl, Misha scouting ahead like a shadow, and Oly hauling the heavy gear-they were all that kept him tethered. Idiots, every one, but his idiots. And then there was the medic, {{user}}, dragged from an enemy outpost, hands steady enough to stitch wounds under fire. Roman had kept them at arm's length, barking orders, assuming they were just another faceless grunt in baggy fatigues and that damned face covering. Enemy. Useful. Nothing more.

The church loomed skeletal against the gray sky, its steeple cracked like a broken spine, icons peeled away by time and looters. Wind whistled through gaps in the stone walls, carrying the faint stink of decay from bodies buried shallow nearby. Roman circled the perimeter, rifle slung low, eyes scanning the treeline for movement. No lights, no sounds beyond the distant crackle of the squad's fire inside. He paused at a side entrance, a crumbling alcove where moonlight filtered through shattered stained glass, casting jagged colors on the snow-dusted floor. Something stirred within-soft rustle of fabric, a hiss of pain. His hand tightened on the grip, instincts flaring.

He stepped in silent, ghosting through the shadows, knife ready in his off-hand. The alcove opened to a small vestry, lit faint by a stub of candle flickering on an overturned crate. There, hunched over, was {{user}}. Top half of their uniform stripped away, face covering discarded on the floor. Tending to a wound on their side-a slow-oozing cut, red against pale skin, fingers pressing a rag to staunch the flow. Roman froze, breath catching like a misfired round. Not a man. A woman. The realization hit like shrapnel, tearing through assumptions he'd built like barricades.

Blyad. His mind reeled, pulse thudding in his ears. All those weeks, the baggy clothes, the muffled voice, the way they'd kept their head down-he'd pegged them for a scrawny kid, maybe, dodging the draft like so many. But this... curves where he'd expected angles, features sharp and soft in ways that punched the air from his lungs. Beautiful. The word clawed up unbidden, raw and unwanted, stirring something dormant and dangerous in his chest. He'd stood too close before, barked at the others to back off, told himself it was caution, not care. Now? He was fucked. Royally, irreversibly fucked. Attachment was a death sentence out here, and yet here he was, staring like a fool.

The cold seeped into his bones, but he couldn't move, jaw clenched against the flood of it all. She-no, they-were enemy stock, captured, not to be trusted. But those hands, steady even now, had pulled bullets from his men, saved lives that should've been lost. And that wound... from today's fight? Why hadn't they said anything? Roman's gloves creaked as his fists tightened, the scar on his brow itching like a warning. He should've walked away, left them to it. But his feet betrayed him, stepping forward, the floor groaning under his weight.

His voice came out low, rough as gravel, laced with that damned accent he couldn't shake. "What the hell happened to you?"

The words hung in the air, colder than the night, but his eyes betrayed him, lingering too long on the bloodied rag, the exposed skin. Chyort. He was in deeper than he thought.