My brothers Keeper, an SI as the twin brother of Stalin (Reworked)

[Alenco98]

mika
yes?
why do you have two hands?
what?
mika

Click to shrink...

Edited

I really need to proofread better lol

 

[Alenco98]

Excerpt from George Orwell's 1945 novel, Animal Farm:

Napoleon and Bonaparte were two large Berkshire boars, litter-mates from the same sow, but so different in manner that many animals wondered how they had come from the same mother.

Napoleon was a pig of quiet disposition, rarely seen in argument, but with a heavy presence that made others uneasy. He had a way of watching, waiting, and saying little, as though every word were a weapon to be saved. He spoke seldom, but when he did, it was always with an air of finality, as though the matter had been decided long before.

Bonaparte, by contrast, was a creature of fire and fury. The animals admired him, for he lived among them, worked beside them, and boasted that his own sons would toil as hard as any beast. Yet there was a hardness in his eye that frightened even his admirers. To friends he was loyal, compassionate and generous, but to enemies he was inhumanly cruel.

Beside them was Snowball, a lively boar with quicker speech and more inventive ideas than either of the brothers. He was less imposing, but far more articulate, and seemed to carry the future in his words. Where Napoleon's silence was oppressive and Bonaparte's zeal was terrifying, Snowball's enthusiasm was infectious.

It was plain to all, even in those early days, that the destiny of the farm would be decided between these three.

March 20, 1923
Moscow Yaroslavsky railway station
Moscow, Soviet Union

Joseph Stalin stood on the platform, surrounded by nearly a hundred armed Chekists. Beside him stood Yagoda, hands clasped behind his back as they watched the train approach through the gray Moscow morning.

The locomotive's whistle echoed across the station. He was finally here. Stalin remained motionless as the train slowed to a stop. Steam hissed from the engine. Doors opened. Soldiers and Cheka personnel began disembarking. He paid them little attention. Their faces blurred together, they didn't matter to him. There was only one person he cared about seeing. His eyes scanned the crowd until he finally spotted him.

Mika emerged from one of the carriages, his coat draped over one shoulder. Elsa Brändström stepped down beside him. The two were already speaking before their feet touched the platform. Stalin watched. Mika said something to Elsa. Elsa replied to him, then Mika laughed. Not the laugh Stalin knew. Not the short, cynical bark he used during Party meetings. Not the dark amusement that usually accompanied threats and executions. A real laugh. The kind he had not seen from him in years. Stalin's jaw tightened. The woman was speaking again. Mika leaned slightly toward her as he listened, he seemed comfortable, relaxed, distracted.

The sight angered him more than it should have. For years, Mika had belonged at his side. Through exile, revolution, civil war, and bloodshed. When others hesitated, Mika acted. When others debated, Mika enforced. When enemies needed to die, Mika never flinched. Now he was smiling at a Swedish nurse. Stalin folded his hands behind his back. Then Mika looked up. Immediately, his face brightened. "Brother!" he shouted in Georgian. Half the station turned to look at them. Stalin felt a flicker of embarrassment. The tone reminded him of Gori. Of two boys running through muddy streets before revolution and politics and death had consumed everything. Mika strode toward him without hesitation. Before Stalin could react, he found himself wrapped in a crushing embrace. For several seconds he simply endured it. Mika had always been more physically affectionate than he was.

Eventually, the hug ended, and Stalin looked him over carefully. He was thinner than when he had left for Central Asia. Harder, perhaps. The campaign had clearly taken its toll. Yet there was more life in him than before, more color, more energy. Stalin found himself disliking that realization. "You look like shit," he said in Georgian. Mika laughed.

"It's good to see you too, Joe."

"Follow me to the Kremlin."

"Ohh come on." He said, almost pouting. "No welcoming speech? No Parade? Flowers? Not even a small choir?"

"No." Stalin stared at him, Mika grinned. "There is work to be done comrade Jugashvili."

"Of course there is." Mika sighed dramatically. "There is always work to be done." Mika's gaze shifted toward Elsa. "Will there also be work for Miss Elsa? You've read the reports. She proved very useful." Stalin finally turned his attention toward her. She met his eyes without flinching.

Interesting, most people looked away. She didn't. He studied her for a moment, blonde, composed, Intelligent. And far too comfortable standing beside Mika. She wasn't behind him, beside him. He didn't know whether to be happy for him or angry at him.

"Ms. Brändström."

"General Secretary Stalin." Her Russian was nearly flawless. Flawless enough to make his own accent seem stronger by comparison. Annoyinh.

"We can discuss your role over lunch."

Her expression remained calm. "I would appreciate that."

"We will determine how you can assist the government."

"I look forward to it." She sounded Polite, confident, she wasn't intimidated at all. He had never truly interacted with her, not until now at least. Now he understood, so this was what Mika saw in her. Why he liked her. That realization did not improve his mood, if anything it made him angry.

"Very well, Comrade Stalin," she said, then she turned toward Mika. "Mika, shall we go?" For a moment, the station seemed quieter. Mika, not Comrade Jughashvili, not Mikhail Vissarionovich. Mika. The name was spoken naturally, effortlessly, as if she had done this before, constantly. As though it belonged to her. As though she had a right to it. Stalin felt his fingers curl slightly inside his gloves.

44 years.

He and Mika had lived for 44 years, they had gone through everything. Mika was not merely family, he was his closest ally. He was his sword, his enforcer. The one man in the Party he trusted completely, who he felt he could trust with his life. And now this woman stood beside him, drawing smiles from him, drawing laughter from him, making him talk about hospitals and schools and children in his reports from central asia instead of enemies and power.

She was corrupting him, softening him, stealing pieces of him. Stalin forced the thought down before it reached his face. He had spent too many years mastering himself to show something as childish as jealousy. Still, as they began walking toward the waiting automobiles, he noticed Mika and Elsa speaking quietly to each other. Over and over again.

And every time Mika smiled at something she said, Stalin's expression grew just a little colder. Yagoda noticed he always did, Yagoda noticed everything. That was what a good servant was for. "Is something wrong, Comrade Stalin?" he asked carefully.

Stalin's eyes remained fixed on the pair ahead of them. "No." The answer came immediately.

Then, after a pause, "Ms. Brändström appears to have become very influential." Yagoda followed his gaze.

"She seems close with Comrade Jughashvili." He said.

A muscle twitched in Stalin's jaw.

"Yes." Close. That was one word for it. Stalin watched as Mika laughed again at something she said. His brother, his sword. And for the first time since the train arrived, Stalin found himself hoping Moscow would remind Mika where he truly belonged.

March 20, 1923
The Kremlin
Moscow, Soviet Union

The convoy stopped at the Borovitskaya Tower. The guards checked everyone's identification — save for Stalin's, even Mika had his papers scrutinized. He wasn't in the Politburo, not yet, though that time was coming.

Once the formalities were settled, they drove through, heading toward the Grand Kremlin Palace. They stopped before its gates, less than a hundred meters from the tower. His children, nephews, mother, and wife were already waiting. "Didn't we use to live in the Cavalier Building?" Mika asked.

"We did." Stalin nodded. "But our quarters were moved. From now on we will be living in the Grand Kremlin Palace. Nadezhda and I are in the Maid of Honor room. You'll be a few doors down."

"Fair enough." Mika shrugged, then turned to Elsa, who had been sitting between them for the duration of the drive. "You've met my kids before, yes? Come, you should see them again."

Elsa hesitated. "Are you sure? I know it has been several years since Maria. I don't think they would appreciate me replacing their mother."

He rolled his eyes. The sentimentality was tiresome. Mika exhaled quietly before offering her a patient look. "It's fine Elsa. I'll explain everything. Come on." He pushed open the door and stepped out of the car. Thankfully he had removed that ridiculous sword prosthetic from his arm and left it in the trunk. He looked more docile that way.

"Papa!" The shout came before the door had even fully swung open. Mika's children ran toward him at a sprint — all of them, even Yakov, especially Yakov. Elsa emerged a moment later, tentative, smoothing her coat. Stalin opened his own door and walked around the car without hurry.

He stood there and watched. His children. His mother. His wife. His nephews. They swarmed Mika, all of them at once, and Mika opened his arms and received every last one of them, asking how they were, laughing, squeezing shoulders. It was as though the courtyard had been waiting for him. As though they had all just been keeping the seats warm.

"Mika." Stalin walked up behind him and gripped his shoulder firmly. "We should take this inside. There is a meal prepared."

Mika turned and grinned. "You heard Uncle Joe, everyone — let's have a feast!"

Stalin's grip tightened. Joe. Again. Not Comrade Stalin, not even Soso — Joe, as though they were still boys stealing fruit in Gori. He let his eyes move briefly across the courtyard. Guards only, no party men as far as he could tell. He exhaled through his nose and said nothing. Fine. He would allow it. This once.

---------------

Back in the dining room the table was already set, an assortment of Georgian and Russian dishes laid out with care. Khachapuri, pelmeni, borscht, chakapuli, kupati. His mother had arranged it. Many of these were Mika's favorites, naturally. Keke never failed to remember what Mika liked.

He sat and ate calmly. The children peppered Mika with questions. Nadezhda did as well. Keke too, leaning forward whenever Mika spoke, touching his arm when she laughed. Even the servants seemed to brighten as they moved around him — and Mika spoke to them directly, asking about their families, their lives, whether they had been well. The servants. Stalin watched a young woman smile shyly as she refilled Mika's glass. The table had never been like this while Mika was gone. He knew that, had always known it somewhere, though it had been easier not to think about while the distance was there to soften it.

It wasn't surprising, not really. Mika had always been this way — warm, easy, magnetic in a manner that required no effort and invited no suspicion. Before the Party, before the revolution, before any of this, he had been the same. The boy everyone wanted to be near. Stalin had simply assumed that with time, with hardship, the quality would dull. That the years would sand it down the way they had sanded down everything else. They had not.

He ate steadily, offering brief answers to the questions that came his way, deflecting the rest with a glance or a short silence. He had not brought Mika back because he missed him. He reminded himself of this now, deliberately, the way a man reminds himself of something he knows he is beginning to forget. Lenin was incapacitated. Mika was useful, more than useful, necessary, the word sat in his chest like a stone he couldn't dislodge. He had not allowed himself to need anyone since he was in seminary, and here was that old humiliation dressed in new clothes. He kept his face still. He plotted as he chewed, who could be threatened, who could be persuaded, who would need to be removed quietly, and precisely how he could begin to use Mika now that he was officially back within reach.

And then there was the woman.

He watched them across the table. Mika said something low and Elsa laughed, a real laugh, not a polite one, and he leaned toward her slightly as she replied. She had been stiff before they had gone to central asia, careful with every word, the way foreigners always were when they first understood what proximity to power actually felt like. She was not stiff now. She was looser, warmer, her eyes moving to Mika's face with a familiarity that had not been there before he left. Their dynamic had shifted. Something had settled between them that had not been there before, something quiet and assured, the kind that did not need to announce itself.

Stalin reached for his glass and drank slowly, watching her over the rim. Mika was his, he belonged to no one else. Maria was family, Kato's sister, that he could overlook, Elsa was an outsider, a foreigner. She wouldn't steal Mika so easily.

--------------------------------------

He found himself in Mika's room. Two beds had been set up — one for Mika, one for Elsa. He noted it without comment and said nothing, though the arrangement settled in him like a splinter.

"I haven't been back for a day and we're already plotting." Mika said, dropping into his chair with the ease of a man who had never once been uncomfortable in his own skin. "You said Lenin was ill." He said as he leaned back on his chair. "I'm guessing it's rather serious. You wouldn't recall me unless you believed he wasn't going to recover. And I'm guessing you want to use my position in the Cheka as leverage against Trotsky. Am I close?"

Stalin said nothing. He kept his face still and let the silence do its work. To think Mika had assembled that much from so little, part of him was relieved. The Swedish woman hadn't dulled him after all. The other part filed the observation away carefully, the way you note the range of a weapon you cannot yet afford to disarm.

"Let me guess the rest," Mika said, as though the silence were simply a pause between his own thoughts. "What happened to Lenin? Cancer? A stroke? Some injury that festered? I need to know what I'm working with."

"A stroke." Stalin said. "The twenty-seventh of February. He is in Gorki now, outside Moscow, recuperating."

"His condition?"

Stalin held the question a moment too long.

"That bad." Mika said. It wasn't a question. "Paralyzed? Can he speak?"

"You know Mika," Stalin said, "you are too sharp for your own good sometimes."

"Yes, yes." Mika waved it off. "But I'm on your side, or have you forgotten? Remember Gori? The seminary? When, precisely, have I not been on your side?" He slightly leaned forward and smiled — that broad, self-assured smile that had charmed priests and policemen and half of Georgia before either of them had grown a full beard.

Stalin hated that smile. It knew too much and apologized for none of it. And yet…..he wasn't wrong. He had never once been wrong about that. Stalin exhaled slowly. "Lenin is paralyzed. He cannot speak. A few days before you arrived, he requested cyanide from me so he could end it. We persuaded him to undergo treatment instead."

Mika nodded. Something moved behind his eyes, not quite pity, not calculation either, but something in between, something that sharpened as it settled. His smile shifted just slightly. "Joe." He said it in Georgian, low and deliberate. "You're in charge of supervising Lenin's care. Is that right?"

Stalin's eyes narrowed. "Yes." Also in Georgian.

"Sabotage the treatment." Mika said it plainly in Georgian, the way another man might suggest a different route home. "Not fatally, nothing so crude. Enough to ensure he is crippled for life. Picture it." There was something almost gleeful in his voice now, a boyish brightness that had no business being attached to what he was describing. "He sits in a wheelchair. Unable to speak. One finger, just enough to ring a bell. We control who sees him. You already run the party from behind the curtain — this buys us the time to make it permanent. By the time Lenin actually dies, Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev — they will have nothing left to stand on. You will be a red tsar, Joe."

Stalin looked at him for a long moment. "You are always full of surprises, Mika."

"What can I say." Mika smiled and spread his arms. "I've always been creative."

"You believe it can be done?"

Mika chuckled. "So you are receptive."

"Can it be done?"

"With the right doctors. The right treatments, administered slowly, drawn out as long as needed." He leaned forward slightly more. "The stalling is yours to manage. If I'm too involved, suspicion will be drawn to us and ruin everything."

"I will take your proposal under consideration." Stalin paused. "I trust you understand that what was said in this room remains in this room."

"I love Elsa," Mika said. "But even I wouldn't tell her something like this."

It did not reassure him. If anything it made things worse — the way Mika had reached for her name instinctively, the first name out of his mouth when the stakes were highest. Not the party. Not the cause. Her. He filed that too.

"Mika."

"Joe, come on." He tilted his head, something almost gentle in his voice. "When have I ever betrayed you? I'm your twin. Not some functionary you intend to use and discard. We were born together. We'll die together."

Stalin looked at him — at that open face, that easy certainty, that warmth that bent every room it entered toward itself — and felt the old knot pull tight somewhere beneath his ribs. Love and something darker that had no clean name. Something that had lived alongside the love so long the two had grown together like roots.

"Get some sleep," he said. "Report to Lubyanka in the morning."

"Whatever you say Joe."

Note: I think I'm going to end this season with Lenin's death. I've also been thinking once this story is done about writing an alt hist of this alt hist, basically a what if Mika went to the US instead of remaining in Russia. I kinda have a few ideas in my head, Instead of Mikheil Jugashvili he'd be Michael Steel, CEO of steel industries. It's just a thought so far, I may or may not go forward with it.

 

[kimvan]

That'll be interesting,I'm down for that.

 

[GarfRed]

I really want Mika to talk to some authors of the dystopia genre and just absolutely be both the greatest inspiration and fear among them on how many cruel ideas he can give them as plot points.

 

[OverseerEX]

Note: I think I'm going to end this season with Lenin's death. I've also been thinking once this story is done about writing an alt hist of this alt hist, basically a what if Mika went to the US instead of remaining in Russia

Click to shrink...

Talking about this story being done is ringing alarm bells, Comrade. We have at least 200 more chapters. (I hope).

 

[Alenco98]

Talking about this story being done is ringing alarm bells, Comrade. We have at least 200 more chapters. (I hope).

Click to shrink...

This season, not the story, the story itself is going to last to the modern day. Once Mika dies it'll become a TL like the footprint of Mussolini

 

[eagles62973]

Would love to see him as a US tycoon. He knows where the oil is he knows the coming trends and can fast forward tech. Would be really interesting to see it fleshed out into it's own story.

 

[VincentBr0]

Amazing chapter, as always. I concur with eagles's comment, I'd love to see that alt hist of Mika going to the USA. See if he's happier there, how his relationship would have been with his now deceased wife. What challenges he faced there, and if his relationship with Stalin would change in any meaningful way or would just be strained.