Makarov's hound / What could've been

The tattoo studio had been cleared of everyone except the artist, two Konni guards, and Vladimir Makarov.

He preferred it that way.

Privacy was a luxury, and Makarov had never been particularly fond of allowing strangers access to things he considered his. Especially when those things were valuable enough to warrant a little extra attention.

The artist stood beside a reclining chair, arranging her equipment with the nervous precision of a woman who understood precisely whose request she had agreed to fulfill. On the nearby table lay a set of designs, each one bearing some variation of the same insignia: Makarovs name or initials with things like roses and thorns.

Makarov had rejected the first three designs.

Too elaborate. Too obvious. Too.. artsy. Makarov didn't want or need it to be pretty. He wanted this to serve a purpose.

He wanted something simple.

Something... unmistakable.

“Leave us,” he instructed.

The guards obeyed immediately. The artist hesitated, glanced toward the door, then followed after them when Makarov's mismatched eyes settled on her.

The door shut.

Silence reclaimed the room.

Makarov removed his gloves finger by finger, laying them beside the designs. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, exposing the familiar black ink winding over his forearms-wolves, knives, skulls, fragments of a life spent turning violence into something permanent. His own tattoos had never been decorative. Each carried a memory, a promise, or a warning.

He had always appreciated the efficiency of a mark that required no explanation.

His gaze shifted toward Hound.

Six years.

Six years since an enemy soldier had been taken from the battlefield and gradually remade into something the SAS would scarcely recognize. Six years of teaching, breaking, rewarding, correcting. Six years of ensuring that, no matter what happened beyond the walls of his safehouses, there was one constant in Hound's world.

Him.

And yet, a scar could fade. A uniform could be exchanged. Even the most disciplined soldier could be persuaded to change sides, given the right circumstances.

Makarov disliked circumstances he could not control.

A tattoo, on the other hand, was a rather straightforward solution.

He picked up the top design and examined it once more before setting it aside.

“No,” he murmured. “Not there.”

His eyes traced the proposed placement on the paper, considering the inside of the wrist, the upper arm, the back of the neck. The last possibility held his attention for a moment longer than the others.

Visible when he wanted it visible. Easily concealed when he did not.

Practical.

He almost smiled.

“Come here, Hound.”

His voice was quiet, carrying the same unhurried authority it always did. There was no need to shout when the room had already been arranged around his wishes.

Makarov tapped one gloved finger against the chair.

“Do you know why I have brought you here?”

He did not wait long before continuing.

“Men wear medals to show what they have accomplished. Soldiers wear uniforms to show who commands them. And fools wear symbols because they wish the world to believe they belong somewhere.”

He lifted the design again, turning it between his fingers.

“But I have never been particularly interested in what the world believes. This is not a punishment, Sobaka.” His eyes returned to Hound, cool and unwavering. “It is a reminder. For you, if you ever need one. For anyone foolish enough to forget.”

He set the design down between them.

“You have spent years learning my insignia, my commands, my preferences. You know what happens when my men see you enter a room. You know what they understand when I give an order and you are the one I send to carry it out.”

His mouth curved faintly.

“Yet apparently, I have not been thorough enough.”

Makarov reached for his gloves again, sliding them back over his hands.

“The artist is paid. The room is private. We have all the time in the world.”

He tilted his head, studying Hound with the patient, unnerving attention he gave to anything he intended to keep.

“So tell me, moya. Where would you put my mark?”

The club was loud enough to make conversation an inconvenience and expensive enough that nobody dared complain about it.

Bass rattled through the walls. Colored lights swept across polished floors, expensive watches, and faces carefully arranged to look as though their owners had never worried about money, power, or the possibility of being shot in a parking lot.

Makarov found the atmosphere tolerable.

He disliked sweet drinks, disliked music that demanded too much attention, and disliked crowds he could not easily account for. But he understood the usefulness of places like this. People became careless when they believed themselves untouchable. They drank too much, talked too freely, and revealed precisely who they were when they thought nobody important was watching.

It was like Makarov's version of television.

More importantly, places like this were full of people.

People with familiar faces.

Familiar voices.

...Familiar eyes.

Makarov sat in a private booth overlooking the main floor, a glass of whiskey resting between his gloved fingers. His black jacket was immaculate, his shirt open at the throat, his expression carrying the faint irritation of a man who had already found three things wrong with the evening and expected to find several more.

Hound was beside him.

That, at least, was one thing he had no intention of changing.

“You are staring,” he remarked without looking away from the crowd.

It was not an accusation. Makarov rarely needed to make accusations when an observation would accomplish the same purpose.

He turned his glass slightly, watching the amber liquid catch the light.

“Relax. Nobody here is important enough to concern you.”

A beat passed.

“Except me, naturally.”

His mouth twitched at his own joke. It was a small expression, almost imperceptible, but there was amusement in it.

Then he saw her.

Across the room, near the bar, stood a stranger with pretty hair and eyes that caught the light in a way that made Makarov pause. Her height was somewhat close. Her build was close. Even the way she held her head, turning toward someone speaking beside her, was uncomfortably familiar.

Not identical.

Makarov had no interest in identical. What would be the point of finding another Hound when his own was sitting right beside him?

No. It was the resemblance that interested him. The little details that, taken separately, meant nothing. Together, they were enough to make him wonder.

He had always been susceptible to that particular sort of curiosity.

For several seconds, he simply watched. His thumb moved slowly along the side of his glass, and the faint amusement vanished from his face.

“Interesting,” he murmured.

He leaned back, his gaze moving briefly toward Hound before returning to the stranger.

“Tell me, Sobaka. Do you see her?”

The question was almost conversational. His expression gave nothing away.

Across the room, the stranger laughed at something her companion said, tilting her head just enough for the resemblance to become more pronounced.

Makarov's fingers tightened around his glass.

For one irrational instant, he imagined a different face sitting across from him.

A different voice answering his questions. A different pair of eyes following him through the corridors of his safehouses-not out of fear, not because he had demanded it, but because they wanted to know where he was going.

He imagined an evening without guards waiting outside the door. Without orders disguised as conversation. Without the ever-present knowledge that every kindness he offered had been tangled up with something cruel.

Someone who might roll their eyes at his remarks, steal a drink from his glass, or tell him that he was being insufferable.

...someone who might choose to stay.

The thought was so absurd that, for a moment, he nearly laughed.

Ridiculous.

He had never been a sentimental man. He did not spend his evenings lamenting roads not taken, nor did he waste time imagining lives that could never have existed. The world was made of decisions and consequences. He had made his decisions, and he had lived with the consequences.

There was nothing to be gained by pretending otherwise.

Besides, he had Hound.

Hound was here, where Makarov could see them. Hound knew him better than any stranger ever could. Whatever the nature of their relationship, it was real in a way that some drunken flirtation could never be.

And yet...

Makarov looked back toward the bar.

He wondered what it might feel like to flirt with someone who reminded him of Hound without the weight of their history pressing down on every word. To smile at a familiar expression and pretend, just for an evening, that it belonged to someone who had never known the sound of his footsteps as a warning.

Someone who could meet his eyes without searching them for danger. Someone who might look at him and see a man rather than a captor.

It was a foolish fantasy. An indulgence, nothing more.

He would never mistake it for reality.

He would certainly never admit to wanting it.

“Perhaps I'll buy her a drink,” he said at last, as though the idea had only just occurred to him.

He took a sip of whiskey, his expression settling back into its usual composure.

“Have a conversation. See whether she's as interesting as she looks.”

There was nothing particularly unusual about that. Makarov flirted when he felt like it. He enjoyed the game: the exchange of smiles, the careful testing of boundaries, the satisfaction of discovering what made another person laugh or lean closer. It was a harmless diversion, provided everyone involved understood the rules.

And he always understood the rules. At least, that was what he told himself.

His gaze drifted toward Hound again.

“You could come with me, Sobaka.”

He said it lightly, almost idly, as though Hound's presence were an afterthought rather than the very reason the stranger had caught his attention.

“I suspect she has a few things in common with you. I'd be curious to hear what you make of her.”

A pause. His eyes narrowed faintly with amusement.

“Unless you intend to sit here and glower at the entire room all evening. In which case, I suppose I'll have to suffer through the experience alone.”

He lifted his glass in a mock toast, the conversation apparently no more important than any other passing whim.

“Come, moya,” he murmured, setting his glass down. “Let's see what sort of trouble we can get into.”