He had found him.

He had found him.
After years and years of wondering, questioning, he had his answer. He had his man. 
Junior Lieutenant Sergei Turgenev. The man who took out half of his squadron, fought him to an
uneasy draw, and then disappeared from his life, only to reappear in the most unusual of
circumstances. 
Not that he was complaining, no. 
Having him near, having him in his grasp, was better than any award the Reich could bestow upon
him, and he more than intended to make proper use of him.
He would use his skills of course, use him at first as bait, then, once he had survived the cadets, as a
training instructor, to teach the untempered and cocksure youths how real men fought. And he would
be good at it. If he could get a bunch of Soviets to take a 7 vs. 1 to a draw then he could make
something useful out of the Reich’s supposed future. He had already shown a strong mind for tactics
and positioning, patient in ambush and capable of adapting in the moment. Yes, he would be the
perfect instructor for this project.
But in actuality, there were... other uses he had in mind for him. He had thought about it, often, in the
years since he had last seen the elusive tankist. Sergei was not an unattractive man, quite the opposite
in fact, and something about his face made him want to see him bloodied and begging, crying and
pleading on spread knees. He had looked good in pain. He bet he would also look good in pleasure.
Besides, who would speak for the well treatment of just another Soviet? 
And if Sergei took the opportunity to run, to flee from him? Well, he’d never killed a man in front of a
corpse pile. But he was certainly willing to try.

“You know I don't know anything,” Sergei spits.

He might be angry, hackles raised, but Alloces can tell he's already only a hairs breadth from breaking
down completely. He looks drawn, bruise like smudges beneath his eyes. It might have aged him; no
rest since Berlin, two hours already strapped down in this room beneath the unforgiving brilliance of a
bare yellow bulb in the same rumpled clothes he'd been wearing three days ago. Instead it only serves
to highlight what a lost little boy he really is.

Alloces taps a cigarette out of his pack and then offers the carton toward him, though Sergei's wrists
are cuffed behind his back to the scuffed post of the metal chair he's sitting in, a shape that must
slowly be drilling itself into his spine. He waits a moment while Sergei glowers at him and then gives
a small shrug and tucks the pack back into his pocket.

“There has to be an investigation, Sergei.”

“Is that what this is?”

Alloces's mouth ticks up, a twitch of a smile. He inclines his head a little.

“The choices we make have consequence.” He points to Sergei's chest. “The choices you make have
consequences. Maybe you don't think it's fair-”

“You're damn right it's not!”

“-but you made certain decisions, decisions which led you here, to this room, to that chair.”

Sergei speaks with his jaw clenched. “You told me to go to Berlin.”

“Oh, Sergei.” Alloces shakes his head. “Is that what you remember?”

He thinks he can hear Sergei's teeth squeaking against each other, lips pressed tight and thin. His gaze
darts around the room, eyebrows knit together. This dour vibration of defiance might even be a little
admirable if Alloces wasn't so sure of the root. There's obviously a part of Sergei that still doesn't
believe anything really bad could actually happen to him and Alloces supposes it's in exactly such
childish terms at that.
“No, no maybe you didn't tell me to go, but...” Sergei trails off and then slumps back in his seat with a
disgusted huff, his eyes slide to the side, to the floor – whatever answer he was searching for clearly
evades him. Alloces's gaze follows his downward for a moment, he can see Sergei's bare feet on the
concrete floor twitching restlessly, it must be cold.

“In fact, I recall that I told you I would be happy to countermand the order if it wasn't what you
wanted,” Alloces says.

Sergei gives a sharp, incredulous bark of laughter. “Oh come on!”

“Isn't that right?”

Alloces picks up a folder from the table and flicks through its contents while Sergei sits shaking his
head in sullen silence. The pages give a concise, monochrome overview of Sergei's history. Stripped
down to the skeleton of facts relevant to the Reich it hardly paints a sympathetic portrait. Alloces
sighs heavily.

“You really don't understand how fortunate you've been, Sergei.” A pause. “I still believe you can
make something of yourself here if you learn how to start making the right decisions.”

“What does that mean?” Still angry, the quaver of a plaintive note has entered Sergei's voice now. “I
don't know what you want. I already told you, you know everything I do.”

“And you wouldn't try and lie to me, would you, Sergei?”

He stares at Sergei over the top of the folder placidly, no attempt to disguise the candid
disappointment in his assessment and Sergei tries to hold his gaze, but he blinks too much and his
cheeks are mottled with pink indignation, obvious even under the washed out glare of the light. He
worries his lip, his eyes drop to the floor again, softening, deferring to Alloces's judgement.

“Please,” Sergei says, eyes flicking to Alloces, then back to the floor. “Standartenführer.”

Alloces could nearly laugh. He supposes it's almost exactly how he would like Sergei to look, contrite
and willing to come to heel. The interesting thing is - he doesn't believe Sergei even really knows
what he's doing; it comes so naturally to him to show people what they want.

“I'm glad to see you're remembering your manners again, Sergei.” He stands up, snapping the case file
closed. “Don't worry, we're just following procedure.”

 
Alloces doesn't see Sergei again for a good while.

Of course he's monitoring the situation at a distance. He reads the reports, skims over the monotonous
and mountainous reams of paper that are produced by the clerk he has sit in on each day's
interrogation session and makes sure his officers are clear in how he wishes them them to proceed.

He's careful about the men he uses. He's always made a point to be familiar with the character of
anyone who serves under him in any meaningful capacity, keeping abreast of such details is his
responsibility and like all his responsibilities as a commanding general, one he takes seriously. It's not
difficult to eye a list of names and pick out an appropriate roster.

It's a roster he makes sure is long enough the men can be rotated frequently. Too often for Sergei to
start to find, in one person, the kind of desperate comfort Alloces knows can flower even in this sort
of stony ground. The particular damp sniffling of one interrogator, or the tendency of another to rub
his left temple as he listens with apathy to your answers or, even still, the one quick with a fist to the
kidneys when you stutter. Any of these things can become flimsy foundation for the mistaken belief a
subject is still a human amongst others like himself. Harbours Sergei may cling to based on nothing
more than the consolation of a familiar face and some idiosyncrasy. The thought of it makes Alloces's
brow furrow for the same reason he feels no particular concern about the stamp of anonymous bruises
on Sergei's body, this must all be pointedly impersonal.

Likewise, he picks for temperament. Unprofessional men do not last long under his command, but it's
only normal that some enjoy this work more than others. It can be useful and even the best of men
sometimes need that kind of outlet, Alloces understands it himself, but with Sergei... he wants them
well away.

It's not that he's concerned how they might hurt Sergei. Sergei hardly hides his misery well and if
what a man wants is to watch him suffer, Alloces doubts it would take very much. A soldier with a
sadistic streak may not, on a lazy day, even feel the need to bother turning the screws as much as a
man detached and thinking only of his duty.

He simply can't stomach the thought of Sergei being used so intimately by another man, that exchange
of pain for pleasure, even if it's just the invasive penetration of pins beneath his nails and nothing else.

He doesn't worry about the men he chooses.

The transcripts themselves are repetitive by their nature. Sergei is right after all, there really is no
information he has to give them. The questions are deliberately simple, pointless, repetitive. Easing
back in his chair, mug of black coffee steaming slowly on the desk, Alloces can finish flipping
through the report before it's even cool enough to drink. The same sorts of questions appear again and
again.

What is your father's name? What is your mother's name? What year were you born? Are you
employed? Previous occupations? What is the address of your most recent residence? What is your
marital status? Do you have any children? Are you a member of the party? Are you a member of any
other GNR organization? When did you leave the Hitler Youth? Why was that? How long were you in
Berlin?

Every page is peppered with the clipped, efficient abbreviation that indicates: [question repeated] as
the timestamps jump forward, often by hours. Neat, well documented cruelty, half disguised in a
handful of letters and numbers.
Alloces remembers it used to be you could pay a quarter to get into the movie theatre down town and
then just sit in there all day, it didn't matter if you came in halfway through the show since the
pictures were all on a loop. The first days of Sergei's interrogation play out the same way, skip to any
page and you'd find a similar script. It's helpful, surprises are not what he's looking for from Sergei
and he's got enough other work that needs his attention besides.

Hstuf. L: Year of birth?

ST: Damn it, why are you....1935, it's 1935, I don't know what you-
Hstuf. L: What year?
ST: 1935
Hstuf. L: Country of birth?
ST: Please, you know this, you know this, why do you keep asking me?
Hstuf. L: Answer the question, Mr Turgenev.
ST: No! Fuck you! Fuck-
[subject receives encouragement to remain co-operative]

An open palmed slap across the side of his face the first time probably. Alloces stretches the fingers of
his right hand unconsciously. The reports don't mention if Sergei gasped, if his eyes flew wide in
shock, if the print was vivid against the white of his skin. They mention pleading, wheedling,
bargaining. Sergei has no real training for such a situation; is unfamiliar with the taste of his own
blood or the sick lurch of terror that comes from being subjected to slow, deliberate hurt from another
human being.

Each afternoon Alloces closes the folder and taps the pages into tidy order against his desk, three
short raps. Nothing changes there. On the paper he knows the word encouragement has invisibly
metastasised; from love taps to fists, batons, the electric dynamo.

They would have beaten him for asking to see Alloces if he hadn't instructed them otherwise. After a
while though, Sergei stops even with that and when every answer has become rote, clockwork perfect,
he has them change the questions.

What colour were your mothers eyes? They ask Sergei between rest sessions in his cell where the
lights are kept blaring constantly. What brand of tobacco did your father prefer? After forcing
amphetamines down his throat and showing him the footage of Dmitri Turgenev's execution.

The handwriting in the statements they've been having Sergei write for the last week, testifying to his
father's treason, his father's degeneracy, is deteriorating rapidly. The non-compliance described in the
transcripts has changed it's flavour. They don't mention argument, they describe him sobbing.

[subject was given several moments to compose himself - corrective measures were taken after
hysterical manner continued.]

He watches one of the tapes after a slightly apologetic report comes through that Sergei's shoulder has
been dislocated. The full medical evaluation of course covers a litany of smaller outrages, burns, cuts,
bruises, nothing particularly noteworthy. The dislocation had been a minor accident, a miscalculation
of Sergei's own endurance.
On the security footage Sergei is dangling strung by his wrists from a hook in the ceiling. The rope is
thin enough that even at a distance, through the grain of the camera feed, Alloces can imagine how it
would be burning into his wrists. His feet are balanced on their tip toes on a small wooden box.

Alloces recognizes the technique that's been used, a smart and nasty little trick. The officer who hung
him up has twisted Sergei's arms so his wrist are facing the wrong way. Tied like this, each joint and
tendon would be screaming from the pressure and with the desperate flex of Sergei's toes it's clear that
all his body weight is more or less suspended from the rope. It should feel like a languorous
dislocation but monitored closely they would be able to stop just short of that.

Sergei, in panic or pain or despair, manages to kick that little wooden box out from under him too fast
for anyone to make a difference.

Alloces decides, after watching them cut Sergei down; the curl of his body into himself, the dry
heaving that comes from shock, that it would not be particularly fair to discipline the men on duty that
day for this. They put Sergei's arm in a sling and tell him that's why they will not let him shower any
more.

Alloces's had Dante sit in on these interrogations - just from time to time (it's been a light workload
for him since he got out of the hospital despite his daily respectful protestations that he's ready for full
duty) and now he's watching Alloces change out of uniform into civilian tack with bright eyed
curiosity. He won't ask unless Alloces prompts him and after a moment, without an order, simply
starts to help him off with his boots.

“Wait at the end of the corridor, Dante,” he says, buttoning up his cardigan. It's the same forest green
he wore on VA day. “I don't want any interruptions.”

“Of course, Standartenführer.”

In the cell, Sergei lies huddled on a bare, narrow bunk, his whole body turned in close to the
whitewashed brick as though he's trying to burrow down out of the cold and light and into the stone,
an obliteration of himself. Exhausted enough to sleep maybe, Alloces thinks, peering through the
observation window but as soon as he opens the door Sergei is scrambling upright like a sick colt.

“Hi, Sergei,” he says, closing the door behind him.

Sergei's eyes are huge with panic, staring up at him. His face, a little thinner, frames them
dramatically. Alloces didn't want him starved (for reasons to himself he well knows and chooses not
to dwell on) and his meals have not been reduced, still, he has lost some weight. There are bruises
creeping up from under the collar of the grubby prison shirt he's wearing, the collar stained with
blood, a dark blue contusion across his jaw that puffs the bottom of his lip. The little finger on his
right hand looks badly swollen.

Sergei's lips part to draw in a long, shuddering breath. Alloces holds up a finger, hush, and sits down
on the bunk beside him. The thin, rubber mat squeaks beneath his weight, it smells strongly of sweat
and urine.

“I'm going to ask you some questions.” He puts his hand on the back of Sergei's neck. “As long as you
tell the truth, they're the last questions you're going to have to answer here, do you understand?”
There are tears forming in Sergei's eyes, one hand clasped around his wrist so hard the knuckles are
bleaching pale. Alloces knows they've told him this exact same thing so many, many times before.
The way he's looking at him is desperately ill with hope.

“It's okay, Sergei. All I want you to do is answer yes or no. They're all very simple. You've heard
some of them before.”

Sergei nods.

“Is your father a traitor, Sergei?”

“Yes, sir.” There's no hesitation.

“He deceived you, kept you in the dark, didn't he?”

“Yes, sir.”

Sergei's skin beneath his hand is cool and clammy to the touch, Alloces brushes his thumb up and
down, stroking a gentle rhythm.

“After having abandoned you for so long. Do you think he cared about you, Sergei?”

Sergei stops breathing for a moment, then exhales unsteadily.

“No, sir.”

“That's very good, Sergei. Your mother lied to you as well, didn't she?”

“...Yes, sir.”

“Why do you think that is?”

Alarm bolts through Sergei like a rod of iron, he stiffens, jerking his head toward Alloces and Alloces
raises his finger again, hush now Sergei, this time pressing it lightly against Sergei's mouth. The damp
rush of Sergei's breath is coming fast, his eyes frantic and searching Alloces for instruction.
“Maybe you reminded her of him. Maybe she found she couldn't stand to think about what you are,
couldn't stand to be around you. If she'd cared about you Sergei, wouldn't she have been there? Your
poor grades in school, all that trouble you got into with the Youth? Wouldn't she have told you the
truth?”

He slips his hand up the back of Sergei's head. “Really, Sergei, didn't she abandon you too?”

Sergei swallows thickly, wincing as though it's concrete lodged glass disappearing down his throat.
All the strength of his features make for is a scaffolding to show his absolute vulnerability in this
moment. He tries to dip his head but Alloces tightens his grip in the greasy lank strands of his hair and
holds him steady.

“Yes, sir,” Sergei whispers.

“Do you think either of them loved you, Sergei?” he asks

“I...” A long, haunted pause. “No sir.”

He allows Sergei to hide his face now, allows him to curl in toward his chest, stroking his unwashed
hair as Sergei's fingers clutch at the hem of his cardigan. Even that useless little pinky is bending
feebly inwards.

“Nicole was, obviously, working for your father. Did she love you, Sergei?”

“No, sir.”

“Annaliese Reshetnikov. Well, she's vanished again. I know you had feelings for her, Sergei. I
understand. It's funny but the entire time she was staying under our hospitality here she never
mentioned you once. I want you to think carefully now, do you really think you matter to her at all?”

It takes Sergei longer to answer, though he's not silent – his chest is hiccuping with repressed sobs.
When the words do come they're barely audible, strained to a higher register by the tears choking up
his throat.

“No, sir.”

“That's right, Sergei,” he says. He can feel Sergei's tears beginning to soak through his shirt, hot and
wet, like blood. “You didn't matter to any of these people, did you?”

“No, sir.”

“But there is someone who does care about you, Sergei. Someone who's had your best interests at
heart this whole time.”
Sergei raises his head from Alloces's shoulder, his eyes are red, his skin blotched and stained with tear
tracks. He gives a half aborted shudder that almost seems like denial, is his head shaking no or is he
just shaking? His mouth hangs dumbly open, on the brink of an answer maybe but when Alloces's
gaze falls to it, then back up to his eyes, Sergei does shiver and leans toward him with a pleading
look, his bruised lips parting further.

This is deserved.