TRIGGER WARNINGS:

Implied emotional, slightly explicit physical, and non-explicit sexual child abuse; non-explicit child prostitution; incest; major character death; Toris has a very messed up view of sex; worries about power imbalance in a consensual relationship; a couple of words that are not for use in polite company.

Rated M for adult themes and two non-explicit sex scenes.

Holy cow, this might be the longest oneshot I've ever published!

A caveat: the flashbacks — possibly even the entire premise of this fic — are almost guaranteed to be completely unrealistic, because thankfully I have never been through anything like what happened to Toris and don't know anyone who has. Also, the point is not to accurately describe the abuse, prostitution, etc, but to explore the damage it has left on Toris's psyche.

Thanks to TypewritingFangirl for [sorta semi-]betaing this!

On the night of his eighteenth birthday, Toris does his best to pretend it is a normal night, a normal routine. He does the dishes, scrubbing the crumb-covered plates until the water grows frigid, then hurries upstairs to tuck his brothers in. Raivis is already asleep when he gets there; smiling, Toris wipes off the frosting still smeared across the freckled cheeks. The thick purple quilt rustles softly as he pulls it up and switches off the lamp, careful not to bump the nightlight out of the outlet on his way out. In the room next door, Eduard is wiping off his glasses before putting them on the nightstand.

"Teeth brushed?" Toris says absently, plumping a pillow. Eduard rolls his eyes.

"I'm fifteen, Tor. You don't have to check on me every night."

"Sorry."

Eduard smiles a little, knowing that they will have this conversation the next night as well. Toris has been taking care of them since before they can remember, after all. He can't fault his older brother for retaining the protective instincts that had kept them all alive before they moved in with Ivan.

Sometimes, though, Eduard wishes his brother would do something about his own happiness. With Eduard already preparing for college entrance exams, with twelve-year-old Raivis already writing stories good enough to win contests, he wonders if Toris ever feels inadequate or left out. His whole life so far has revolved around taking care of his family. Maybe now that he's an adult, he'll finally work up the nerve to do something selfish for once.

Eduard doubts it, though.

"Are you going to tell him tonight?" he asks, casually enough. Toris freezes.

"Tell who what?" he says cautiously. Eduard twines their fingers briefly, trying to convey understanding and acceptance.

"I've seen the way you look at him," he says quietly. You deserve this, he thinks. He may be ten years older than you and practically our father but if anyone will make you happy, it's Ivan. And of all people you deserve happiness, someone you trust, a lover who isn't going to hurt you, someone you don't have to protect us from, someone you want to be with. Not for money or to keep him away from us or because you have no choice. You deserve love, Tor—

He wants to put all of that into words, to use his eloquence to convince them both, but all he can do is squeeze his brother's hand, and maybe Toris understands anyway.

"Yes," he says. His voice cracks a little. "I'm going right now, to tell him." He pauses. "He's going to hate me, Ed."

"I don't think Ivan's capable of that," Eduard tells him honestly. "Tor, he adores you."

Toris's fingers twist against Eduard's palm, a nervous habit the older boy has never been able to break.

"Not the way I, I want him to." The stutter's back. Not a good sign. Eduard grips his shoulders and forces him to breathe.

"Toris. Listen to me. You are going to go in there. You will tell Ivan how you feel about him. He will be very surprised. You will ask him how he feels about you. Whatever his answer is, you will go from there and figure things out."

"But—"

"Toris, I know him and he knows you." He knows your view of relationships is messed up, he means, and Toris knows that's what he means. "He isn't going to be angry or disgusted that you of all people fell for the one person who's ever cared about you." (I know you're scared, believe me, I know.)

"Do, do you really think that?" The hope in his brother's voice hurts. Eduard takes a deep breath.

"I do. Even if he doesn't return your feelings, he'll understand."

Toris bites his lip — Eduard remembers a time when Toris's bottom lip was constantly chewed bloody, back when every bite they ate was earned in dark alleyways that left Toris bruised and his breath smelling sweetly acrid — and bends to kiss Eduard's forehead.

"Good night, Ed," he says quietly, turning to go. As the light flicks off, Eduard sees his brother's stance shift slightly — head high, hips swaying as he walks. It's the way he used to stand on street corners, winking at passersby who looked like they had money — Eduard remembers a time before Toris learned to look desirable, when little Raivis curled up dull-eyed with hunger, and Toris cried once he thought Eduard was asleep, wondering aloud if it would be better to just go back — and Eduard's heart aches, his fist curling in his blankets, and he prays with all the strength in his body for something, anything, to go right for the boy he loves so much.

Ivan's door is open, and Ivan is already in bed, reading. He looks up when he hears the door close and a wide smile appears on his face as he lowers the book.

"Toris!" he says cheerfully. "So how did you like your birthday?"

Toris tries to return the smile. The bed sinks slightly as he sits on it. "It was— good. I enjoyed it. Thank you."

"And how does it feel to be an adult?"

Toris shrugs. "Not much change, really," he replies. "I don't, don't feel any different." What he does not say is that he has been grown-up for years. He can't remember the last time he felt like a child.

"Ah, but there's so much you can do now!"

Toris swallows hard and says, "Only one thing I, I really want to do. Have wanted to do. For a, a long time. I—" and before he can talk himself out of it, he swings one leg over Ivan's body, kneeling so that he is straddling his guardian's hips.

"Toris, what are you doing?"

"Do you remember, Ivan?" He is breathing quickly, shallowly. Can Ivan hear his heartbeats? They are so loud in his own ears. "The night you, you brought me here and I—" His fingers are spasming with anxiety. He leans forward and touches Ivan's cheek. "I'm not a minor anymore, Ivan, I, I, I was waiting 'til now because I l— I care about you and I didn't want to get you arrested for, for statutory rape—"

Ivan grabs his wrist, a rare frown crossing his features. "Toris. What I said then still applies. That's not why I took you in. I never wanted that from you!"

"I know!" Toris swallows again. "I know. That's why— I want to— I— I love you, Ivan."

His guardian's violet-blue eyes go wide.

"I love you," Toris repeats. "I've loved you since I was fourteen. And you don't have to accept it. But I, I thought you should know."

"Oh, Toris..." Ivan says softly. He pushes himself into a sitting position and reaches forward to wipe his thumb under Toris's eye, where tears are seeping out from between thick lashes. Toris is blinking rapidly. His face is lowered.

"I'm old enough now to know what I want. I want— I want you. I've wanted you for so long. Because you never touched me, you never seemed like you wanted to, to touch me. For the first time in my entire life I didn't feel as if my, my body was the only thing I had." The boy's expression tells Ivan that isn't an exaggeration. "I could trust you with the boys. I could lock the door of my room. I felt— I felt so safe, Ivan! Like you actually cared about me. I wasn't— I wasn't just a toy, to you. You turned me down." He raises his eyes, the dark green bright with unshed tears. "No one's ever done that."

"Is that the only reason, Toris? Is that the only reason you love me?"

"I don't know," Toris whispers. He pulls back a little, bites his lip. His front teeth nestle neatly into the white, puckered scar, and Ivan wants to kiss that scar. He wants to find every one of Toris's scars and kiss them better, to be the one to bring a smile to that beautiful face.

The thought almost frightens him.

"Ivan?" Toris's voice is small. "Do you hate me?"

"No." It's the truth. "No, I could never hate you, Toris." Deep in his bones, Ivan knows his affection for this boy became infatuation long ago. But he cannot, will not, destroy Toris's trust in him.

"I know you don't, don't feel the same way. Tell me to leave, and I'll go to bed right now, and this will, will never have happened. And I'll move out in the morning if you, if you want me to. If you don't want me around anymore. I— I understand." He moves as if to get up. Ivan pulls him back down.

"Toris. I'm not kicking you out." His voice sounds thick and harsh in his own ears. "But I think you're making a mistake. What if I told you I would sleep with you? What then?"

Toris is silent.

"What if it turned out I did want your body? What would that do to you? Think, Toris! Would you really be able to handle that?"

"Even then." Toris sounds as though he is struggling to speak. "You restrained yourself all these years. There are so many times you could have, have taken me. And you didn't."

"Would you still be able to believe that I cared about you for more than what I can get out of you?"

"Yes," says Toris without hesitation, and Ivan almost believes him.

"It took so long for you to heal," he murmurs. "If I broke you again... I would never forgive myself. Because I love you, Toris." He wets his lips. "Heaven help me, I love you. The same way you love me."

Toris's eyes widen. In surprise? Hope? Betrayal?

"Back then, you were so tiny. You looked like a frightened rabbit. Just a baby, with a scarred back and every rib showing, offering yourself to me because you couldn't think of any other reason I would be kind to you. And all I could think was that anyone who could take advantage of you in that way didn't deserve to be called a human being."

"I'm not that child anymore," Toris says quietly.

"No," Ivan agrees. "I suppose you're not."

Toris makes a noise like a sigh, or a whimper, and shakes his head. Gently, Ivan brushes back the chestnut locks that are falling loose, tickling his cheek. The words tumble out of his mouth before he can stop them.

"I do love you, Toris."

"I'm scared," Toris confesses.

His voice throbs with sadness, with vulnerability.

"I've never loved anyone but you. I've never had anyone who loved me, either. Just people my whole life telling me all I had to offer anyone was my body. I'm just a whore, Ivan, I don't know how to give anything else. But, to you, I want to give it freely. Because you never asked for it."

"And if I accept it?"

Toris's answer is a kiss, brushing Ivan's lips like butterfly wings, and slim, crooked fingers twining around his neck and through his ash-blond hair. He breaks the kiss long enough for his t-shirt to hit the floor in one swift movement.

Slowly, Ivan's hand slides up and onto the boy's bare chest. His palm rests above Toris's heart, feeling every pulse like a bolt of electricity.

"I trust you not to hurt me," Toris says fiercely. "Not my body, not my heart. I promise, Ivan. I promise I won't break again."

Tentatively, Ivan runs his fingers down his abdomen. Toris shudders, grabbing Ivan's hand, pressing it to his skin.

"Please," he begs.

Then Toris feels strong arms wrap around him and chapped lips on his cheek, and he knows his guardian has given in. His breath hitches as soft, delicate touches circle on his back, across the scar-ridges, cool and careful.

"Are you sure?" Ivan asks him, one more time, and,

"Yes," Toris breathes.

So Ivan presses him gently onto his back on the bed and for a moment, Toris panics despite himself, caught up in fifteen years of memories, but Ivan murmurs, "It's me, it's only me." Concern in his eyes, and Toris realizes that if he asks, Ivan will stop right now. This is not his father, who likes to hear him scream. Not the customers who demand their money's worth. Ivan loves him.

Toris trusts him.

He tips his head back to expose his white throat, feels the man he loves trace his collarbone, first with a fingertip, then with his lips. Ivan covers him with kisses, every scar, every freckle, his jaw, neck, chest, forehead, nose, lips, tongue lapping delicately at Toris's mouth, a soft nip of a bite where his shoulder and neck meet, and Toris moans breathlessly.

"I—Ivan," and the older man lifts his head, eyes purple in the dim light, soft and kind and loving.

"You spent so long pleasuring others," he whispers. "Let me— let me love you, Toris."

"A-ah!" and Toris's hearing goes fuzzy and he closes his eyes, and he never imagined that it could feel like this.

Raivis doesn't remember very much about living on the streets, and even less about their home before that. He knows they had a father and a mother, and that their father was cruel and their mother was cold, and that Toris has a mass of scars on his back from them. He knows that one day, Toris picked up his four-year-old brother and took Eduard's hand and walked out. And that is all he knows, really. It's all Eduard feels he needs to know, and Toris never speaks of it.

Raivis's first clear memory is of snow, and Toris shivering so hard his teeth clack together, buttoning Raivis into a threadbare coat that is two sizes too big for him. Beside him, Eduard, curled up in a blanket, beckons the child over and they snuggle as Toris slips away. Raivis remembers wiggling his toes, trying to get them warm, and Eduard's face pinched and sad. Toris, he said back then, was going to work, and it was not until many, many years later, when Raivis poked Ivan and loudly asked what a prostitute was and Toris's face went suddenly paper-white, that he finally understood the lengths his older brother had been going to in an attempt to take care of his family.

Eduard tells him that he is lucky, to have been too young to remember. (Eduard remembers a time when Toris was young and Eduard younger, when Toris stumbled into their bedroom, retching, wiping something thick and white off of his face. He remembers sponging blood off Toris's body while the older boy stared dully at the wall. Toris clutching both children to him, screaming in pain as a broken bottle slashed through skin and muscle and never touched the boys safely tucked under his body.) Eduard remembers the first night they spent on their own: a cool night in July, wrapped in stolen blankets, Toris trying to smile and tell Raivis it was all a game. Won't it be fun to sleep under the stars? But even the baby could see the hollowness of the smile, and shifted restlessly throughout the night. Then came cold, and hunger, and Eduard would lie awake at night trying not to listen to quiet sobs of desperation. He remembers the first day that Toris handed Raivis to him, told him to stay there, not to move, not to speak to anyone. When he returned, hours later, his face was blank, hands shaking slightly, but there was money folded carefully in his pocket, and a bag of groceries cradled in his arms.

All Raivis remembers is that Toris was always gone, and distant even when he was there. Toris might have been providing for them, but it was Eduard who had raised him until he was seven. Then all of a sudden they were living in a house, and there was always food and Toris was there and so was Ivan, who was big and scary and extremely kind. It was Ivan who had given him his first notebook, Ivan who had paid for his art lessons, Ivan who treated him — well, the way the kids at school were treated by their parents.

(It is years before Raivis thinks to wonder what price Toris is paying to keep things this way. Eduard, who worships the ground their brother walks on, tells him a little crabbily not to worry about it, but Raivis is a writer with a writer's keen observation and he does not think the way Ivan looks at Toris is the way Ivan should be looking at his foster son— but then, Toris looks at Ivan the same way, so maybe things will be alright?)

(He corners Toris one morning, catches him slipping out of the tangled blankets with a practiced grace, Ivan still sprawled in the bed with one bare arm slung over the pillows. There are so many things he wants to say, but in the end what slides off his tongue is promise this isn't for us, and Toris smiles with more joy than Raivis has ever seen before radiating from his narrow face. All for me, only for me, says the most unselfish person Raivis has ever met, and the morning sun hits his lanky torso, and the white scars that cover his back and sides seem to blaze in Raivis's vision.)

As Ivan lies in bed, he shifts his body so he can look at the boy sleeping next to him. Toris looks so young with his face peaceful and his hair falling over his eyes. Carefully, so as not to wake him, Ivan strokes a finger down his lover's bare shoulder, wondering if he ought to feel guilty. After all, Toris is barely eighteen, and Ivan is almost thirty, has been taking care of him like a father would. There is probably something fundamentally wrong about their relationship, but somehow, feeling the warmth of Toris's body like sunlight in his bed, he can't quite bring himself to care.

"Vanya?"

Toris is stirring, green eyes half-open and clouded with sleep. Ivan can't resist diving in for a swift kiss. It's eagerly returned.

"Good morning, sweetheart," he says cheerfully, and Toris smiles, as he has been doing more and more often since his birthday. He was always, Ivan thinks, a serious child, though none of them is sure whether it is his natural personality or the result of years of trauma — not that it matters that much. Even though his smiles had gotten more genuine as time went by, they were still rare, and mostly reserved for his brothers.

(Come to think of it, the first smile Toris had ever given to Ivan had been born of relief, and he hadn't gotten another for almost a year.)

"What are you thinking about, with that far-away look?" Toris yawns. He raises his arms languidly and wraps them around Ivan's neck, and snuggles into the crook of Ivan's shoulder. (Before they started sleeping together, Ivan hadn't realized how touchy Toris is. Especially when he's sleepy.)

"I was thinking," says Ivan, "about how strange life is."

Toris's brow furrows in confusion. It's so adorable, Ivan decides he wants to kiss him again, so he does. Then he explains, "I was thinking about when we met. Just think, if I had taken a different road home that night, I might never have found you."

Toris frowns. "Don't talk about things like that," he orders. "You did, and I'm here, and that's all that matters."

"I'm sorry," Ivan apologizes, and to make it up to Toris he gives him a thorough kissing, picks him up, and carries him to the bathroom. Toris hums in pleasure the entire time Ivan is scrubbing his back, in big, slow, teasing circles, and then insists on returning the favor.

Toris is right, anyway, Ivan decides as he dresses. If Ivan hadn't found them, the boys would most likely be dead right now, of cold or hunger or overdose or even murder, and that is something he can't bear to think of. It is hard enough to remember the empty look in those now-vibrant emerald eyes, set too big in a pale face on a skinny body, leaning against the wall in an alleyway. There was a bundle of blankets next to the boy, and when coughing rose from the pile Ivan realized that it was another child. (Two, he found out later.) When he said impulsively, "Do you kids want to sleep at my house tonight?" he didn't expect the strange expression that crossed the boy's face, but the reply was steady enough. So Ivan found himself tucking two sleeping children into the queen bed in the guest room he never used. Toris had stood by the whole time, soothing Eduard (who had woken halfway up the stairs and was understandably terrified) and timidly asking for a washcloth for Raivis's filthy face, but he never once made eye contact with Ivan.

Ivan didn't expect to be followed to his room either, but Toris had stood so quietly in the doorway while Ivan got ready for bed, head lowered and fingers twitching, that Ivan barely noticed he was there until he was pulling up the blankets. Sometimes, Ivan wishes he could have seen the look on his own face when the little boy climbed onto his bed, kneeling so that his legs straddled Ivan's hips, and started taking his shirt off.

It probably rivaled the look on Toris's face, when Ivan had demanded to know just what he thought he was doing.

The explanation, when it came, was halting, confused, and given so quietly Ivan had to strain his ears to hear it. Why else, Toris said, would a grown man take Toris to his house? It didn't happen often, but it did sometimes, and Toris treasured those times. His brothers got to sleep in a proper bed, under a roof, and houses were much nicer to have sex in than alleyways, and when they were in a private room people would do things that they were willing to pay Toris much more for than usual, if only because it hurt a lot, and...

Ivan's immediate, visceral reaction was that that was the most disgusting thing he had ever heard.

And Toris had looked at him with sad, dead eyes and said nothing. His thin, bruised body was trembling slightly.

For a long time, Ivan's throat was so tight with indignation that he couldn't speak, but finally, he ordered:

"Put your shirt back on."

Toris obeyed almost robotically, and did not resist when Ivan grabbed his hand (gently, so as not to crush the fragile bones that felt so delicate under his fingers) and led him back to the guest room.

"Are you alright with sleeping on the floor? You're pretty skinny but there are two kids in the bed already and it's only a twin..."

Toris nodded wordlessly.

"I don't want you like that. I have absolutely no desire to sleep with you. Not tonight, not ever." Ivan's piercing eyes met the boy's wide ones. "Do you understand that?"

Slowly, Toris nodded again.

The tiny, tiny smile that crept across his face seemed to illuminate the entire room.

Eduard has been cursed with the gift of memory.

a sharp smack resounds through the small room, toris's head slamming back against the wall with the force of the blow

When he started going to school, his teacher called it an eidetic memory, and said Eduard was very lucky to have it.

words, such hateful words, they take eduard's breath away with the sheer cruelty of them, they're not even aimed at him yet still they make him feel so small and dirty, and toris is struggling, even as his eyes dull at the vicious whispers

It certainly makes learning easier, but at the price of nightmares still vivid even years later.

he keeps his head up, twists his pinned wrists, arches his back away from the dingy wallpaper, and eduard realizes he is trying not to escape but to distract the man, make himself more of a target and eduard less of one, and eduard isn't sure whether to feel grateful or just cowardly

His worst memories are of Toris, mostly, and of hearing strangled sobs, sometimes screams, through the thin walls of their apartment. Eduard remembers curling up beneath his blankets, crying, clutching a fretting baby to his chest, trying to pretend he didn't know exactly what their parents were doing that was hurting his big brother so much. He remembers one evening, when a policeman showed up at their door, asking if everything was alright, one of the neighbors had reported what sounded like violence and could we please come in and verify?

The man who called himself their father was very polite and genial and gladly showed the policeman around, see, here are my boys, aren't they adorable and as you can see they're perfectly fine, my wife, what a lovely woman, not a mark on her. Eduard bounced Raivis on his knee. He was the only one who could keep the baby quiet these days. Toris smiled sweetly, with not a trace of fear in his huge green eyes. (If his hands were shaking, well, the apartment was quite cold with winter moving in.) No, sir, everything is fine, really. My brother and I were horsing around and it got a bit rough, is all. See, I even got a bruise from it — Ed has such bony elbows, it's a wonder I don't have more!

Well, all right, said the officer, but you understand we had to make sure. Just be a bit more gentle with your roughhousing, 'kay? I have two boys of my own, I know how kids are—

Their father made sure to gag Toris that night while he punished him for screaming so loudly as to attract attention.

Eduard throws back the covers violently and buries his face in his hands.

i don't want to remember i don't WANT TO REMEMBER

He runs downstairs, as if he can leave the demons behind if he can just move fast enough.

Raivis is in the kitchen already, warming a pot of milk. Eduard stares stupidly at his brother for a moment; Raivis gently leads him to the table and makes him sit down.

"What are you doing up? It's past midnight."

Raivis shrugs easily. He wears his tiny twelve-year-old body as if it fits him.

(Raivis has no scars. His freckled skin is smooth and his smile comes freely.)

"You were having another nightmare. I can hear you through the wall, you know."

Eduard bites his lip.

the first wail cuts through toris's sobs like a knife

"Have some hot chocolate. It might help, and it can't hurt." Raivis is already mixing cocoa into Eduard's blue-and-black mug and his own maroon-and-white mug. He sets them both down and pauses, his hands wrapped around the warm ceramic.

"Was it that bad? Back then?"

the second seems to freeze the air

"Yes," Eduard tells him. Raivis nods thoughtfully.

"I barely remember anything before Ivan, so... I don't have the nightmares like you do. Like Toris does. Did you know he has them too?"

raivis pulls himself up in the crib that is far too small for his four-year-old body, reaching out his chubby hands, crying out for edyard, edyard, and toris's body hits the ground with a horrible crash

Eduard nods slightly.

"It— he didn't hurt me that much. Not like— like Tor. But..."

eduard grabs the baby, tries desperately to soothe him, as their father kicks toris aside and moves toward eduard, so quickly, huge hands on his shoulders, shaking him, then reaching for the still-screeching toddler

Raivis studies the table. "My nightmares are always stupid, silly things. Things chasing me. Falling. I don't know what yours are about, not really. To be honest... I don't know if I want to."

something heavy collapses on top of his back, and lank brown hair is tickling his neck and in his peripheral vision he can see skinny arms trembling with the effort of holding their owner up enough not to crush the other children

It won't stop running through his head — a replay of the hour that seemed to last for five, until the bed was sticky with blood and Toris was hanging grimly to consciousness and Raivis had screamed himself so hoarse he could only whine pitifully into Eduard's sweat-soaked shirt. (On the streets, cold and hungry, the memory of that terror convinced him that he would much rather sleep in a damp warehouse, curled up against the trembling warmth that was his brothers. Now, it merely tortures him, so that he wakes in the middle of the night hyperventilating. Toris thinks he is well-adjusted. Ha!)

the sound broken glass makes on bare skin is a wet sort of tearing, barely audible over gasps of pain

(The scars will always be there, and Eduard has never dared to ask whether any of Toris's customers ever commented.)

Eduard closes his eyes and shakes his head.

"No, Raivis. You don't want to know what our nightmares are about."

Raivis came home from his first day of second grade bouncing with excitement. He had made three friends: Erik, Heidi, and Peter. The teacher was very nice about him not being very good at reading yet, and she had promised to give him a treat for every chapter he read of a book she had given him. Recess had been spent playing foursquare and arguing over the rules.

Eduard came home from his first day of sixth grade quietly proud. He had made two friends: Tino and Berwald. The teacher was loud and brash and had given a girl detention for teasing Eduard about not understanding the lesson, and had let Eduard stay late for extra help and given him a list of books about the concepts. Lunch had been spent in the library, reading Euclid and doodling the diagrams on a napkin.

Toris came home from his first day of ninth grade and went directly to his bedroom. He refused to talk to Ivan. Eduard coaxed out of him that no one had spoken to him the entire day except to call him a 'retard'; that he couldn't even understand the instructions on the homework, much less the long words in the textbooks; that the English teacher had found fault with his spelling, the math teacher with his arithmetic, and the history teacher had ignored him completely; that lunch had been spent in the bathroom trying not to cry; that Toris was stupid and worthless and good for nothing but looking pretty; and that he never wanted to go back.

It'll get better, said Eduard, who thought Toris could do anything, and for a while it seemed like maybe he was right (because you're really cute said the senior who was smoking behind the school, and how could he have known anything different—)

When the basketball coach found Toris in the locker room with two of the upperclassmen, they called Ivan, and Ivan said nothing in the principal's office and nothing on the drive home, and Toris kept his eyes on the ground. Shame? Fear? Ivan couldn't tell. In the living room, the boy stood with his fists clenched tightly, pupils dilated, and Ivan saw him trembling.

Toris, look at me, he said gently, and showed him that he was on the other side of the room (but Toris still shook, adults move so so deceptively fast—) Why?

And the chapped lips chewed bloody moved just enough to form the words it was the only way anyone would talk to me

and Toris flinched away as Ivan darted forward, closed his eyes as strong arms encircled him, drew in a breath— and Ivan held him, whispering soft words into his ear that made him feel warm and safe and clean and for the first time he cried into Ivan's chest and fell asleep on the couch still gripped by hands that were never going to hurt him

and after that Toris didn't have to go to school anymore.

(Ivan never asks if the other man regrets it. There are a lot of things Ivan has never dared to ask.)

Now, mid-morning sunlight slants across the table, making the untidy pile of bills glow like angels' feathers. Grey marks cover them, scratched on receipts and coupons, the mathematics of necessity. Toris is tapping his pencil on the wood, his bangs falling across his face, and he pushes them back impatiently.

Looking through his lashes at Toris from across the table, Ivan is struck by how lovely he is, and wishes he could tell Toris that he thought it. The words are on Ivan's tongue, ready to be spoken, but he chokes them back. (It hurts, to be so acutely aware that even now, 'beautiful' to Toris still means pain, and the agony of being too wanted.)

(Ivan vows — again — that if he ever gets his hands on his lover's father the police will never find the body. It will be in too many pieces.)

"So if we do that, it'll free up the three hundred we need for Raivis's new bike," Toris says confidently. "Does that make sense?"

It doesn't— Toris is far better at dealing with money than Ivan ever has been — and Ivan thinks that this, at least, is something he can and should say, so he does, leaning over and pressing a kiss to Toris's temple. Toris flushes pink.

"No I'm not," he murmurs, but for once, it doesn't sound like he really believes it. Ivan flicks his ear lightly with a fingernail.

"What have I said about saying things like that?" he scolds. "Toris is smart, and brave, and kind, and I am lucky to be in love with you."

Toris ducks his head, but the sheets of brown hair cannot hide his smile as he puts his pencil back on the paper.

(Toris's handwriting is large, round, and crooked, like a child's.)

Gilbert is fighting with his cousin. Again. Said cousin's wife is not paying attention and carrying all the bags, as the two men walk down the street in front of her, bickering.

Elizaveta sighs, the warm moisture turning opaque in the cold air. Her feet keep slipping on the patches of ice that coat the path, but of course neither of her companions notice, let alone offer to help.

"Red light," she says loudly. When they don't stop, she squeezes in between them and blocks their path.

"It would serve you right," she tells them tartly, "if you both fell off the curb. This is a crosswalk. The light is red. That means stop."

"We ain't five-year-olds, Lizzy," Gilbert grumbles.

"Oh? You're certainly acting like it."

Roderich pushes his glasses up his nose, looking vaguely ashamed of himself. Gilbert kicks him.

"You want five-year-olds? How about this: he started it!"

"I did not start it!" Roderich snaps.

"Did too!"

"Did not— why am I even saying this?" Roderich makes an obvious effort to calm himself down and turns to Elizaveta with an apologetic smile pasted on his narrow face. "I'm sorry, darling. Would you like me to take some of those?"

"Thank you," she says gratefully. "Wait, what is that boy doing?"

"Huh?" Gilbert turns to the other crosswalk, the one that's still green. There's a young man bending over, picking up something. He is also loaded down with grocery bags, long brown hair obscuring his vision.

"Dude, that's way not safe," Gilbert frowns. He cups his hands around his mouth and shouts, "Hey! You! Get moving, your light's almost gone!"

The boy's head snaps up. He waves a hand in acknowledgement — they see the dropped apple clutched firmly in it — and hurries forward. Gilbert shakes his head in amusement and turns back to his friends.

"I'll tell you what," he grins, and does not finish the rest of the sentence, because there is a crash and a cry and suddenly the world seems to have tipped sideways like the lurching of a movie that seems too real to be true.

They are the closest, so they get there first, barely five steps from where the brown-haired boy is curled up amid twisted metal and glass and plastic. Gilbert drops to his knees beside him. The boy is breathing quickly and shallowly and unevenly, a trickle of blood seeping from his lips. Gilbert does not know much about medicine but he knows blood from the mouth is not good.

"Roddy, call 911," he orders tersely, pressing a finger gingerly to the injured boy's wrist. The pulse is weak and fluttery. "Hurry. Liz, check the driver— Liz? Oh, Liz, don't go into shock— hey! hey you! Yeah, you! Get over here!" he shouts at one of the horrified bystanders, then turns back to the boy, squeezing his hand and feeling how limp and cool it is. "Hang on, kid," he mutters desperately, "we've got help coming, just— hang on, okay?"

Tears are leaking out of the fluttering eyelashes, but the boy's eyes are blank and distant, as if he is staring at something just past Gilbert. The gash on his cheek oozes sluggishly; he coughs once, wetly, then again, hacking, spraying blood over Gilbert's face. Gilbert recoils involuntarily, and when he looks back, the boy's green eyes have glazed over and he is no longer breathing.

"He's gone," comes a voice in his ear, and vaguely he hears sirens. Are the paramedics finally here, then? He stands up shakily, then collapses, Roderich catching him and lowering him to the ground as they watch the ambulance leave. Why bother, Gilbert thinks bitterly. They didn't save him, so why bother taking the body away?

Something rolls past Elizaveta's feet and, dreamlike, she bends to pick it up. It's the apple.

That's when she starts to cry.

Raivis, oddly, is the one who ends up handling most of the arrangements. Well, maybe it's not that surprising that he is the calmest. He was never that close to Toris, really. Not the way Eduard was, and definitely not the way Ivan was. The well-meaning people who keep turning up to murmur condolences tell Ivan that it must be very hard, losing a son, and Ivan does not bother to tell them that it is not a son he has lost. The memories he has of Toris are all of soft, warm, bare skin under his hands, and a gasping, breathless laugh of delight ringing in his ears. His bed feels very large now, and cold, and empty.

Ivan does not speak at the funeral.

Raivis wrote a short piece for him to say, only two or three paragraphs, but Ivan knows that he will stand up in front of everyone and stare at the paper and stare at the casket and wordlessly step off the podium anyway. He tries to tell Raivis that the printed words are pretty but they aren't Toris and Raivis doesn't understand. How can Ivan tell these strangers about eyes like summer sunlight and a scarred, beautiful body and hair that smells like every good thing in the world and gentle strength and stubborn courage and fragile self-esteem and fierce kindness and even fiercer love? The things he needs to say are things he cannot say to people who have never heard Toris's voice whispering But, to you, I want to give it freely. Raivis still does not understand, but he does not force Ivan to say anything — not Raivis's words, not Ivan's own. No one comments, although he can feel them judging him silently from behind their printed programs. He doesn't give a damn, frankly. There are far worse things to condemn him for if they want to condemn him.

(Eduard manages to get through his speech without breaking down, somehow, but his jaw must ache from clenching it so hard, and he disappears completely afterward. Neither Ivan nor Raivis ever says anything about the sobbing, agonized screams they hear echoing in the bathroom of the church.)

The headstone says "Devoted Brother". Eduard starts laughing hysterically when he sees it.

They don't know the half of it, he giggles. Raivis— Rai— did I ever tell you how he got those scars? Did I? Do you want to know what our father did because Tor wouldn't move to let him through to your crib? And then he starts crying again, and Raivis's face is stricken. Ivan stands abruptly and strides out. He can barely hear the clatter as the chair hits the floor, not through the high-pitched shrieks of laughter churning in his head.

"He was happy, right?" he begs the darkness of his room, curled in the blankets, smelling the lingering scent of Toris on the pillows. "I made him happy, before the end. Didn't I?"

The darkness doesn't answer, and he goes to sleep knowing that when he wakes up, Toris isn't going to be there.

The next months pass almost unnoticed. Eduard moves in with his best friend, who lives much closer to the college. Raivis writes and draws and rarely leaves his bedroom. The house is painfully silent.

"You haven't been eating enough."

Toris's voice is disapproving. Ivan glances over at the bed, where his lover is sitting with his arms crossed, looking at Ivan's bare chest with a frown.

"I've been eating!" Ivan says defensively, and Toris snorts.

"Every rib, Vanya. I can count every rib. You're skinnier than a fence post."

"So maybe I don't have much of an appetite. I have been getting better, you know."

"I suppose," Toris agrees. "But we both know you'd waste away into nothing if I let you. You'd stay in bed all day and not take care of yourself."

"You're dead, Toryushka. Do you blame me for grieving?"

Toris's face softens.

"Oh, Vanya..." he says, slipping his arms around Ivan and leaning his head on the other man's shoulder.

"I miss you so much, Toryushka," Ivan confesses. "I love you so much it hurts. And losing you hurts even worse."

"I love you too," Toris murmurs, kissing him lightly. "I'm so sorry, Vanya. You know I didn't want to die, right? I wanted to stay here, with you." He is blinking back tears, green eyes shimmering like rain in a cloudless sky. "I was so stupid. I honestly thought—"

"Shh. Don't talk like that." Ivan pulls Toris closer, breathing in the faded scent that used to be so familiar. They lay quietly, until a thought occurs to Ivan, and he blurts out, "What are you?"

"Huh?" Toris turns his face up, confusion etched on his lovely features.

"Are you a ghost? Or a hallucination? Are you really here, or am I finally going crazy?"

Toris blinks at him sadly.

"Do you really want me to answer that, Vanya?"

Ivan shakes his head dumbly. (Toris's skin is warm — is that what an illusion feels like? Can his mind really replicate so well the feeling of holding the boy's thin body, the sensation of slim, crooked fingers tracing his face? Does it matter?)

"It doesn't matter," he chokes out. "As long as you're here, I don't care..."

Toris's arm is looped around his neck, pulling him down. Surely this is not just a hallucination? He wouldn't be able to make love to a hallucination, no matter how well his body remembers the feel of Toris's beneath him and the hushed, reverent whispering of his name and the tiny pleased noises the brunet is making as Ivan covers his mouth with kisses. Toris bites lightly at Ivan's neck and that's not a hallucination either, it can't be, he knows he's not crazy (although he will be soon if he keeps torturing himself like this, trying to figure it out). Stop thinking, Toris orders, and Ivan obeys. This is a gift, it's a miracle, he has no right to question it — he pushes everything else away as they pull away from each other, gasping, laughing, searching each other's faces with eyes and fingers and finding lazy, blissful contentment.

There is a knock at the door.

"I have to go," Toris whispers. "I'll be back tomorrow night, okay? I love you, Vanya—" and the kiss is soft and sweet and longing as the slender figure fades into nothingness.

When Raivis pushes Ivan's door open, he finds his guardian kneeling among twisted sheets, tears running silently down his hollow cheeks.

Sometimes Eduard dreams about his brother.

They are pleasant dreams, but he always wakes up feeling horribly guilty. As he curls up between the cool sheets, feeling the throbbing delight ease away, he tells himself that he is despicable to feel this way, as despicable as the man who used to use them like toys. It is only in sleep that his constant, careful self-control slips, but he hates himself even for that.

The way he feels is sick and wrong. What kind of person falls in love with their brother?

He looked up incest once. Illegal in all 50 states, the book said, if knowledge of the relationship can be proved. Full siblings is, no matter where you are and how you look at it, an unacceptable level of consanguinity.

He snorts. Like Toris would want him anyway.

Toris deserves someone whom he can trust. Someone who will worship the ground he walks on and treat him like a precious jewel and not use him use him use him and throw him away like a piece of trash, like the whore that he used to be and still seems to think he is. Eduard knows he could be that person, if he had the chance. But Ivan adores Toris, and Toris adores Ivan, and Ivan is not their real father by blood or by law, and most importantly Ivan is not Toris's little brother. So Eduard pushes his jealousy down and tells himself that this is what will make Toris happy and all he wants is for Toris to be happy, and tells Toris that it's alright to love the man who raised you but is not truly your father. (Toris raised Eduard and Eduard raised Raivis and sometimes he wonders about the way his youngest brother looks at him and is their entire family that susceptible to this kind of doomed love? Is it a genetic thing, incestuous desire, or is it merely that for so long they had no one else to feel anything about?)

When Toris dies, part of Eduard dies too. For once, mercifully, his cursed memory fails him and he barely remembers anything about the hospital, the mortuary, the rushing around preparing for the funeral, his brother's voice echoing through his head the entire time. Inane, inconsequential things - he clings to them like a drowning man. The next thing he remembers is crouching in an unfamiliar bathroom, screaming into the tile floor, and then it goes blank again.

Tino will tell him years later that he moved into the apartment like a zombie, attended his classes like a robot, broke down into tears at the tiniest things. You acted like you'd lost a lover, not a brother, and Eduard will give a chuff of bitter laughter.

With so few relationships of any kind, he will say flatly, I was never able to tell the difference.

...the heck was that ending?

Eduard kind of tried to take over the story a bit (it's probably revenge for my ignoring him in everything else)... Also, his little crush was his idea. I had nothing to do with it, I swear.

I hate the middle scene — the really long flashback about how they met? I just... feel like it could be so much better but I can't think of how to make it so... (*sigh* I'm obsessive about revising and I get self-conscious about even slight imperfections. The two are not a good combination...)

(Also, Firebird is rubbish at dialogue...)

I really don't know how much Raivis ends up knowing about...well, any of this. He probably guessed a lot more than he ever let on.

The apparition of Toris is either a ghost or a hallucination, but I will leave it to you to decide which. Either way, Ivan is extremely not stable.

Regarding the school stuff, Toris isn't stupid, but he never completed fifth grade, has no experience with other children, has met very few adults he could trust, and is dealing with fourteen years' worth of emotional baggage including at least ten years of deliberate psychological abuse. Of course school is a nightmare for him. Someone probably should have realized this earlier. (You have no idea how bad I felt for him while writing that part. I think I felt worse about putting him through that than about killing him...) Also, my sincerest apologies for using the word 'retard'. That is the cruelest insult I could imagine, and I would hope that none of you ever uses it without good cause.

Oh yeah! I keep forgetting to do this (I feel like it's not as important with AUs, but better safe than sorry, I guess?):

I do not own Hetalia: Axis Powers or any of its sequels or spin-offs, and I claim no rights to the show, the webcomic, or the characters. This is a work of derivative fiction, using characters that were originally created by Himaruya Hidekaz, written solely for the enjoyment of myself and others and in no way for monetary compensation.

~Firebird