Anatoly's dreams were turning out to be a nightmare. Politics was always headache-inducing at the best of times, but during the Cold War when he was from the Soviet Union? That made it all the worse. Though that he could handle. What he couldn't handle was watching his dream self have affairs with other women despite having a wife and two young daughters. Not to mention the latest affair seemed to be someone his dream self had fallen in love with. It just...made him sick to think about.
After seeing his dreams play out, and how he and Svetlana had slowly built their relationship, he was more than horrified to see his dream self throw all of that away for a perfect stranger he met at the World Chess Championship in Merano. One who was from the West.
And considering he knew that Svetlana here was dreaming of the same life, Anatoly was seriously worried that when she got to the same time he was in his dreams, she'd want nothing to do with him here. Not that he'd blame her because his dream self defected to England with the woman he'd met in Merano. His dream self had become more of a jackass than he'd ever thought he could be.
Not to mention his line of work was putting stress on him. Anatoly had taken on some new patients of late. Of course, he more than loved being able to help them, it was just taking a slight toll on him in the long run. He was spending some of his off-time doing some research on methods to better help his patients, and he was getting a little exhausted. But he would still carry on because he was helping them.
Which was why he decided to go to a bar and have a couple drinks. Anatoly needed to loosen up, especially considering sooner or later Svetlana would learn how much of a dick his dream self was. And he didn't know how he was going to handle that yet. He noticed the other man at the bar when he took a seat, so when the man spoke, he looked over at him.
"A better question would be what hasn't brought me out," he responded. Despite spending most of his life in America, Anatoly did have a Russian accent. It wasn't as pronounced, suggesting he'd been here for a while, but it was still there. When the bartender came over, Anatoly asked for a glass of Stoli vodka. Sometimes things called for Russian vodka. "What about you?" He asked, looking back to the other man.