Right hook. Left swing. Duck. Uppercut. Repeat.

His movements were becoming sloppy, predictable even. It was currently late in the evening and Mishka was attempting to keep himself occupied at a local fitness club, sparring with a fellow athlete in the boxing ring. His metallic dog tags clinked noisily against each other and jangled loudly (yes, he still wore them even after having left the army few months prior) with every carefully executed step and precisely thought out maneuver he made to block or counter his opponent. The man was certainly no beginner but to his utter disappointment, Mishka found out quickly enough that he lacked the skills and experience required to keep him on his toes. Another failed catch. At least it was decent exercise. Mishka landed another punch. "Alright, I'm done" the other man surrendered. Both men were sweating at this point and he himself was just about ready to call it quits.

Three-quarters of an hour later and Mishka was in his car on the way back to home. To Amber, his one and only, no less. Several years back and just the thought of seeing her at the end of a long day would have certainly lightened his mood. But now? Well now, not so much. Now they could barely survive a week without at least multiple arguments and the sad part was that most of their bickering was over small things. (Like that time he promised he would take her to see the fireworks show but ended up chickening out because the loud noises disturbed him. He never told her why and just blamed it on late-night drinking with the guys.) When did it come to this? He couldn't say but if anyone asked he wasn't about to admit there were any problems with his marriage either.

Mishka had showered, changed, and even struck up some conversations with people he would have otherwise completely overlooked all in a pathetic attempt to stall. To buy himself as much extra time as possible so he wouldn't have to return so soon. Was he being immature about this? Absolutely and undeniably so. Mishka was painfully aware that he'd eventually have to cave in or otherwise risk upsetting Amber, but that didn't change his feelings of unease. It was just... Too much sometimes.

Mishka shook himself out and focused on the road ahead. Pulling up into the driveway before the house, he put the car in park and killed then engine. Then he just sat, staring blankly ahead. He really did not want to go inside. Not yet at least. Was Amber even home? A quick glance up through the windshield confirmed his suspicion. He released a heavy sigh. Finally mustering together the courage, Mishka got out of the vehicle and walked the paved steps towards the front door. "I'm back" he called out loud enough to surely catch Amber's attention, wherever she was.

"I'm back"

A voice caught Amber's attention. She was currently sitting on the couch in her pajama being a lazy bum, something that she didn't get to do a lot. Amber got up with a sigh and decided she'd probably better at least see how his day was. He was late coming home, but that seemed to be a regular thing lately. She had to admit that it worried her. . . A lot. They had been having arguments lately, and she felt that Mishka was growing distant, and it scared her. Amber knew that she was probably overreacting over nothing, but at the same time she couldn't shake the feeling that he was hiding something from her.

"Hey." She greeted as she came over. As had become her habit for when he came home, she gave him a kiss on the cheek and went over to heat up the food she had ordered, which was chinese takeout. "How was your day?" She asked. Not that she expected anything other then the usual 'It was fine, yours?' Everything was habit. Everything was repeated. Every. Single. Day. They were both pretending there was nothing wrong when both of them knew that something was broken.

Upon spotting Amber lounging on the living room furniture Mishka paused when she began approaching and angled his face towards her to catch her kiss, then returned the favor with a brief on aimed at the side of her head. He removed his shoes and left them by the door before emptying his pockets' contents of keys and a wallet into the shallow bowl sitting atop the foyer table. Mishka's response to the daily greeting was halfhearted; "Fine. Yours?" Little did he know what he'd just done. He followed his wife towards the kitchen, tagging behind not unlike a lost puppy, but then stopped at the threshold to lean against the wall. "I'm gonna run up and take a quick shower. Do you still want to watch that show you like later?" He couldn't recall the name of said TV series for the life of him but it was something Amber liked so every once in a while he tried to make an effort to join her during the show's weekly airing. Something like bonding time although he wasn't entirely sure that was working. According to the clock, he had just a little over twenty minutes to go rinse off and get back in time for tonight's episode to start. Assuming Amber says yes first, of course.

And there it was. The same thing that they'd been doing over and over again for months now. The sheer lack of effort either of them were putting into this relationship made her break a little inside, and she had to actually pause what she was doing for a moment to regain her composure and not cry. It didn't help when she thought about how happy they used to be. She thought that after everything she'd been through in her life, Mishka could be her happily ever after. She had expected problems, she wasn't naive. However, she never expected having to guess as to whether or not her husband even cared anymore. After a few prolonged moments of silence, she took a deep breath and forced herself to answer Mishka. "Yeah, might as well."

"Okay." Mishka gave Amber a wan smile before silently heading upstairs. He made straight for the bathroom in the main hallway and turned on the water, allowing it adequate time to warm up while he went to get some clean clothes to wear. Padding into their bedroom Mishka foraged through his drawers for some clean underwear and a pair of sweatpants. By the time he returned to the bathroom, the shower was thankfully already steaming to satisfyingly hot temperatures. Mishka always loved it when the water was hot although it always left him looking like a tomato by the time he was done. The man was in and out within a few minutes, and he made sure to towel himself off very well before getting into his sleepwear. According to the clock, he was well within his allotted time frame which meant he didn't have to worry about rushing. Mishka headed back down and returned to the kitchen. He grabbed a bowl and some utensils, then served himself with rather large portions before finally settling on the couch. "Alright, ready whenever you are" he announced as he made himself comfortable on the furniture. Mishka grabbed the remote from the nearby stand and handed it to Amber.

After turning the TV to the station her show was airing on, Amber sat on the couch and tried to focus on the show. However, that was easier said then then done when her marriage was falling apart and the only one that seemed to care was her. She didn't want to fight with Mishka again, but she felt as though someone needed to say something. It was one of those moments where she knew the only person that was going to do anything was her, and if anything was going to change she had to be the one to take action. It's like when you're in a group of people and you're the only one that is going to speak up against something, and it can either end really well, or it can make the situation even worse then it was before.

Amber was carefully considering her words, trying to decide whether or not she would actually say something. Would it change anything? Was it worth the risk of things getting worse? What if Mishka got angry, or worse yet, what if he gave the answer she most feared? She bit her bottom lip as the knot in her stomach continued to grow tighter. The butterflies she had once felt when Mishka was close to her had died and turned to stabbing pain and fear of getting into another fight with him.

A sigh left her lips as she finally made a decision. She'd ask him this single question, and pray it wouldn't lead to another confrontation. At that moment speaking became the hardest thing in the world, and took all of her energy to force her mouth to open and to form the words.

"Mishka. . . Do you still love me?"

Do you still love me? Mishka would have never thought, hadn't known, it was possible to ever hear such lethal words uttered without the intention of actual malice.

In one fluid motion, Mishka swept up the remote to turn off the television before doing a ninety-degree turn in his seat to face Amber. She had his attention. "What?" The question, of course, was rhetorical. He has heard her loud an clear and that was exactly what had him so concerned at the moment. "Kotik, what the hell does that even mean?" He wasn't angry, just hurt. Struck dumb and now trying desperately to understand where this was coming from. What could he have possible done, how badly did he fail her, for her to have to ask such a thing? He didn't wait for an answer and continued but this time with a gentler tone. "Of course I do! I'm so sorry, I know I don't always show it in the way you deserve but believe me when I say you are the most important person in my life." They'd been together for years, had known each other for even longer. Their marriage wasn't exactly perfect -Mishka believed there would always be room for improvement- but it wasn't a wreck either, hopeless beyond repair. At least that's how he felt about it. He never forgot her birthday, their anniversary, or days they planned on doing something special together. Her favorite song was still burned into his memory from all those times he played the stupid thing on repeat just to memorize the lyrics for her, and he knew the recipes to her preferred desserts like the back of his hand. Was he a sap? Undeniably so but that wasn't something he was ashamed of.

"Tell me, what's wrong?" Verbal communication wasn't his strong point despite his fluency of multiple languages, but he was willing to try. If she wanted to yell at him for screwing something up, then he'd take it. If she just wanted a hug and to cry, then he'd take it. All he wanted was for her to give him something to work with.

His words did bring a bit of peace to her, and she knew he was probably running through his head to see if he could find what he did wrong. Her mind was a jumbled mess and she didn't even know how to put the chaos into words. It wasn't just him, it was her too. She had always been very sensitive to the slightest change in someone's behavior, and it made her nervous when people changed. Every time someone changed, they started to pull away from her, and eventually they'd leave. She'd been told she was paranoid, but it had happened too many times to be simple paranoia at this point. Even though Mishka hadn't really changed, something about him was still different. They way it felt to be around him was just ever so slightly off. Something had changed, and it scared her because she didn't want to lose him. God, she couldn't lose him.

She thought she had lost him once, and it almost killed her. When Mishka was still with the military, he went off the radar for several weeks. It wasn't uncommon for him to blip off every now and then for a couple of days, but after six weeks of not hearing anything from him or anyone that worked with or near him, her friends started trying to prepare her for the worst. They started trying to gently tell her that maybe he wasn't going to come back, and that maybe it was time to start to give up hope a little bit. She would always paste a smile on her face and tell them that they were spouting nonsense, but at night when she was alone her bedroom, she'd cry herself to sleep every night, terrified that the next morning she'd wake up to a letter on her doorstep telling her that he wasn't coming home.

Turns out they had just been going deep undercover and they couldn't tell anyone. Amber had never been so close to slapping military generals before in her life.

She had been simply sitting in silence for several seconds now, trying to think of what to say. She could feel Mishka's worried gaze on her, and with a sigh she reached over and took his hand, a sort of comforting act she did whenever she was distressed over something and needed reassurance. "It's just we. . . Everything's repeated. . ." She said simply, not sure of how to explain it.

'Repeated' she answered him. So simple and yet so complicated, being that it was something that could be interpreted in numerous ways. But repeated as in...? He waited patiently for an example -an elaboration of some sort at least- but she gave none. If you took a step back and really thought about it, most of peoples' everyday lives are repeated. We eat, we work, we pay for things like necessities and luxuries. All in all, we live and eventually die. Anything new about that? If it was an existential crisis she was experiencing then Mishka wasn't so sure what he could say to help. Amber reached out for him and he reacted like every other time she did this; a conditioned response. Mishka readily allowed his arm to go limp so Amber could do with it as she pleased. He didn't mind and even returned the favor by turning his hand over so he could curl his fingers around her wrist. "Kotik," Mishka stopped to pinch the bridge of his nose with his free hand, trying not to let himself get frustrated. "What do you mean by that?" He was nearly pleading with her but not quite, more annoyed than not (although that was not his intention, despite his tone implying otherwise).

Her heart sunk as she heard the tone in his voice. They were barely a few sentences into the conversation and Mishka was already annoyed at her, it was incredibly disappointing. True, neither of them were really the best st communication, but she thought that they'd at least get to talk for a minute before things started going downhill. Now in a worse mood then she was in previously, she bit the inside of her cheek to try and keep in her own irritation at him. "Everything is the same, every day. We wake up, we say he same things to each other, we go to work, we come home, and always have the exact same conversation, unless we get into a fight. We tiptoe around each other all the time, we haven't done anything together for months besides watch a stupid show once a week, we haven't made each other laugh in God knows how long. This marriage is slowly dying and you haven't even noticed how bad things are!" She exclaimed.

His patience was running thin, wearing down and chipping away by every word that came out of Amber's mouth. Spicing things up was something Mishka could understand; although, he was undoubtedly caught off by how frustrated she was from the lack of 'change' in the recent months. What did she expect? It wasn't something previously discussed and Mishka wasn't a mind reader, so he didn't find it fair that she was mad at him for missing this. But, thinking back on it now Mishka realized just how right Amber was. They hadn't done anything fun or special for a very long time now. Vacation, date night, something, anything. But her accusation? Her claim of his obliviousness on their 'dying' marriage struck hard at him and Mishka wasn't so sure what to say to that. It left him feeling defensive and quite wounded, actually. Mishka withdrew his hand from her grip and draped it over the back of the couch. Then he readjusted his position to make himself more comfortable and moved closer to Amber. A few moments passed where he couldn't bring himself to look at her and instead chose focus on the ticking from the pendulum on clock hanging off the far wall.

Mishka cleared his throat and looked back to to meet Amber's gaze. "Do you want a divorce?" No transition, no warning. It was something he would rather much never have to deal with but he needed to get it out. The words were clear and his tone low. Not once did it ever occur to Mishka that he'd be asking such a thing to the very same woman he promised to live the rest of his life alongside. It hurt and his heartbeat suddenly sounded much louder to his ears.

Amber felt as though she'd been hit by a truck, and had she not been sitting down the shock of Mishka's question may have made her stumble. A divorce? The thought had never once crossed Amber's mind, and it hurt her beyond belief that the thought had apparently crossed his. Her mind went blank and all she could do was stare at Mishka in shock as tears started to well up in her eyes, which she quickly tried to hide by looking down and letting her hair fall over her face. This was the man that she loved with every fiber in her being. This was the one man in the world she could find that wasn't some sarcastic jerk who played it off like he cared about you and then stabbed you in the back. As much as his activities had been scaring her the past few months, she wanted to save their marriage, not end it. But did Mishka want the same thing? The more she thought about it, the more her heart started to break, and the less she could control the tears that were now streaming down her face. No, no she didn't want a divorce, and that was plain through every aspect of her body language.

He was looking at her with an expression she had never seen before, and it terrified her. She'd almost rarher he start yelling at her, because if there's one thing that anger proves it's that someone cares about something. But there was no anger in his eyes, she couldn't read anything. Gathering the last of her courage, she made herself look Mishka in the eyes again and asked with a shaky voice. "Do you?"

His finger twitched but only for a second; his instincts were telling him to stop, to fix this and comfort her. But he couldn't. Mishka could tell that Amber was crying, despite how she attempted (and failed) to hide it. The fact that she didn't want him to see her like that, however, just made him feel disgusted with himself. What hurt him even more was how she chose to avoid answering the question by tossing it right back at him. That only made him feel that much more worried, but he kept his opinion on that silenced. This argument didn't need anymore antagonizing. He responded, "No." Mishka didn't hesitate at all, didn't even have to stop to think it over. Because that was how he felt. How did the saying go? Bent, but not broken. To him that spoke to the heart in a way he couldn't really describe. A divorce would just end it all right there an then, permanently terminating any chance they had at all to fix this. He knew they were screwing themselves over but... He didn't want to end this. At least not yet.

As he answered no, and she couldn't stop herself from hugging him and burying her face in his chest. She was shaking, and silently pleading with him to offer her some sort of comfort. If his goal had been to scare the anger out of her, it had worked, because she now couldn't bring herself to be anything more then a puddle of emotions clinging to her husband with all she had. "Please don't e-ever ask me that again. . ." she said very quietly. At this point she didn't even care if he did anything, she just needed to be near him. She just needed to be sure that he wasn't going to leave her and that he loved her, which was apparently easier said then done. Amber knew he was probably angry with her, he always was after conversations like this, but the subject of divorce had never been brought up before and she didn't care how angry he was right now.

His arms were wrapped protectively around her the second she finally reached out to him. It was the sign he needed. This didn't mean everything would be alright (he wasn't that naïve) but it meant that for now, they were okay. Only for now. "I'm sorry" Mishka choked out. He didn't mean it, hadn't intended to upset her. He just needed the reassurance that there was still that small spark of hope and possibility left remaining between them; asking it was the only way to know. Mishka pulled Amber closer until she was practically in his lap, then rested his face against the top of her head. A few minutes passed without either of them budging; the pair just remained sitting in silence, wrapped in each others' embraces. It was a sort of bittersweet scenario but Mishka wasn't going to complain. At the moment, he was just grateful that the conversation didn't further escalate. He didn't know what he'd do if she had said yes to his question. Mishka finally spoke up again but refused to let go, still holding her securely. "Okay, I won't. I'm so sorry my little kotik."

The warmth of his embrace and the feeling of his arms around her calmed her in a way that words never could. There was something about touch that spoke to the heart far more then any poetry or song. It wasn't anything with an underlying meaning or agenda, it was just pure, and genuine, and completely innocent, and it meant far more to her at this moment then anything else. He didn't pull away, and neither did she. It occurred to her that Mishka may have needed this assurance as much as she did, despite the fact that neither of them actually wanted to have a conversation like this. She knew it was just duct tape on the pipe, but at least it was something for now. Eventually they would have to discuss this further, but maybe they'd do it at a time when both of them were feeling relatively calm and not running high on emotions. It broke her a little inside when she heard the tone of Mishka's voice and realized how much she must have upset him as well, and she remembered that whenever Mishka was scared and trying to stay calm, he basically shut down for a few minutes, which is what he had done when he had asked her that question. The amount of time she speant thinking about herself instead of him hit her rather suddenly, and she felt incredibly guilty.

All these months, all she'd focused on was how she felt, and on what she wanted. Amber had never stopped to think that just maybe Mishka was having a hard time too, which was very out of character for her and it scared her just a little bit. Usually she tried to focus on others more then herself, but it seemed as though she had lost her way.

As the familiar term of endearment left Mishka's mouth, she brushed a comforting hand through his hair and gave him a slight squeeze. "It's okay, I'm sorry too." She responded after she had regained some of her composure. "You know I love you more then anything, right?"

In their moments of silence as the two basked in nothing more than each others' warmth, Mishka's mind began to run amok with unanswered questions and accusations. He swallowed down the thick ball of fear bubbling in his throat and forced it all away; he didn't need to deal with that right now. Thankfully he managed to pulled himself together when he did, and Amber's soft touch helped ease away any last remnants of tension left in him. He still couldn't bring himself to let go though; not yet, he wanted to remain this way a little longer if Amber didn't give any signs of disagreeing with it.

"I don't doubt that." And it was the truth. Even at the peak of their mini-breakdown mere minutes ago, he never once doubted her love for him, nor his for her. It wasn't often Mishka ran into a real-life example of this but he knew it was possible for couples to separate even if they still loved each other. Sometimes things just simply didn't work out. Mishka sighed and slowly loosened his grip, sliding his fingertips down her arms and stopping just at the ends where he held her hands within his own. "Let's go to bed. I know you have a long day tomorrow." It seemed that since he'd come back from serving his last tour overseas that his wife was always busy. Not in a bad way, more like it seemed that she simply wanted to keep herself occupied. He had a suspicion she began doing that when he was in the army so she wasn't home alone all the time, but he never asked. Recently, Mishka had been picking up work where he could -he was currently being paid under the table as an extra helping hand for a construction site in downtown- so his schedules were unpredictable and scrambled. But thankfully this was only a temporary thing, since he had three interviews coming up within the next week so he was optimistic about that.

Mishka stood from the couch and held out a hand for Amber. "Come on" he encouraged. Sleep sounded really good right about now.

Amber let out a shaky breath before nodding and standing up, taking his hand as she did so. Sleep sounded like a very good idea, this day had been long enough as it is. She was no longer a sobbing mess like she had been before, but the affect of the previous scene was still with her and she couldn't quite shake the feeling of depression that had come over her. However the comfort that Mishka had offered helped a great deal, and she was starting to feel better. As Amber started walking towards the stairs with Mishka, she switched from holding his hand to hugging his arm. The girl always got clingy after being upset, and her husband probably wouldn't mind at this point.