Chapter Text
He awakes with a startled gasp, clutching his chest as if to check if it is still there.
A nightmare, he reassures himself as he scans the walls of his room for anything out of place, it was just a nightmare. Here in his room, he is safe.
Yet everything is making noise. The lamp—which he clicks on—has a faint electric buzz, and the attached bathroom has a dripping sink that echoes loudly against the empty walls. Even his breathing is heavy and loud in his ears.
He can’t settle his mind, so he doesn’t. 3:28 AM? It’s the perfect time to start his day, regardless of whether the sun agrees with him.
The walls need to be repainted. Half of them are still an ugly, sloppy grey that looks like something straight out of a prison. He hates them. They used to be such a nice pink, before Ivan swooped in and put him on house arrest.
“That’s the point,” Ivan had told him when he complained about how ugly his house had become, “you’re not meant to like it.”
Yeah, fuck Ivan. He’s glad the Russian is probably drinking alone somewhere, crying his ass off because no one loves him. Feliks doesn’t love him, that’s for sure, doesn’t even like him. He’s pretty sure Eduard would drop-kick Ivan if he could, and he’s certain Raivis keeps a gun under his pillow partially out of fear and partially so if the chance presents itself, he can shoot him between the eyes. Even Natalya, in her blind sibling loyalty, seems a bit at odds with her brother.
And Tolys…well…Tolys doesn’t count, because he’s barely functioning.
He treks out to the kitchen and freezes when he catches sight of the shadow lurking in the corner. He’s almost terrified until he remembers he currently has a housemate. The light flickers on with the same faint electric buzz of the lamp, and Tolys freezes like a deer in headlights.
“Why are you up?” Tolys asks.
“I don’t know, why are you up?” Feliks asks in return.
“Can’t sleep,” he shrugs, “my leg was cramping, and I’m hungry.”
Tolys is dishevelled and small. Feliks isn’t fully sure what happened to him in all their years apart, but he knows the wounds of being Ivan’s “favourite” will stick with Tolys forever. Sad walls, after all, can be repainted again and again until the prison grey colour is a distant memory: Tolys’ body will be covered in scars for the rest of his immortal life.
“Still sleeping under the desk?” Feliks questions as he pours himself a glass of water.
“I like it there, is that so wrong?”
If Tolys were a cat, his hair would be puffed up to make him look bigger and more threatening. Except Tolys is human (or nearly human, at least in his sorry state), and he’s horribly malnourished, so even when he tries to stretch to his full size he’s hardly intimidating. Feliks stays quiet.
“Is that so wrong?” Tolys repeats, a bit more forcefully.
No, it’s not,, Feliks thinks. Tolys and he aren’t so different, really. Both traumatized, both small, both looking down the face of the (physical, metaphorical, metaphysical, whatever,) barrel with a wavering smile.
“Yeah, it’s weird. I bought you a bed, use it.”
Tolys recoils like he has been hit, which is strange because Feliks has watched Tolys be backhanded to the floor without so much as a whimper. It’s probably a strategy to make himself look too pathetic to bother hurting. No doubt Ivan inadvertently taught him the skill. Everyone knew that under Ivan’s rule, the sooner you cried the sooner the pain would stop.
Not that Feliks could let go of his pride enough to test that theory.
“Liet, hey, you know I didn’t mean it like that, I’m just worried about you. He did a number on you before I got you out, and if you keep sleeping on the floor you’ll reopen your stitches.”
“No one asked you to get me out!” Tolys shouts.
Something sad breaks inside Feliks, like it does every time Tolys starts screaming. He doesn’t want to fight—especially not over stupid things like where Tolys sleeps—but it’s damn near impossible for them not to argue. At least, that’s what it’s felt like ever since Tolys started living with him again.
He supposes the problem is that even though he desperately wants to talk, he’s horrible at finding the right words.
Tolys continues;
“Why are you always trying to control me! For god’s sake Feliks, why do you feel the need to control every aspect of my life!”
“I don’t-what? What are you even talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb!” Tolys demands, “You think I don’t know what you’re doing? Ivan was right, you’re-”
“Stop bringing Ivan into this! He’s a fucking liar!” Feliks interrupts, forgetting all the pity he previously felt for his friend, “And he’s not here—he’s not here so stop caring! Stop caring what your shitty ex is doing because he’s not thinking of you!”
“Shut up! Shut up! I don’t want your pettiness!” Tolys screams.
“Oh, I’m sorry I cared! I’m sorry I bothered looking after you, because guess what Tolys? Your brothers aren’t here! They’re living their own life while you intrude on mine. You’re the only one fucked up to the point that you can’t just get over it!”
Tolys looks at him with the sort of hateful glare Feliks used to level at Ivan.
“Fuck you.” Tolys spits before storming off, “You want me out of your life, I’ll get out of your life!”
Feliks follows him to the entryway, even though Tolys refuses to look at him.
“Liet, come on. All this over a stupid bed?”
Tolys ignores him, instead shoving his bare feet into his shoes before fumbling with the deadbolt as he tries to get out. His hands are noticeably shaking by the time he cracks the door open.
“Grow up, Tolys.” Feliks rebukes. He closes and relocks the door before Tolys can flee into the night, “this is exactly why you can’t live on your own. Were you planning to walk back to Lithuania in your night clothes?”
“You grow up!” Tolys huffs, “I don’t need you telling me what I can or can’t do. Now move, I’m leaving!”
Feliks doesn’t know why, but he complies.
“Get over it!” Feliks shouts one last time as Tolys walks down the pathway, “Get over it like everyone else has and stop being a fucking victim!”
Tolys looks back, and in the faint moonlight, Feliks can see just how broken-hearted he looks. He pauses and looks at Feliks like he desperately wants him to say sorry. To say that it’s all okay and that he loves Tolys even if he’s so very broken and dysfunctional. For once Feliks says nothing, instead just letting Tolys continue his walk down the path.
He watches until Tolys has long since disappeared around the bend. He feels guilty. Not for what he said (because even if it was a bit mean, Tolys needed to hear it), but for lying. Tolys isn’t the only one who can’t get over it; Feliks relives it every single day.
—
Ivan hated him. Took every act of rebellion the Polish people tried as a personal attack orchestrated by Feliks. It didn’t matter that Feliks didn’t have any contact with the outside world, that he had to beg the guards posted outside his house for permission to dry his clothes on the clothesline, that he was shot in the leg when he once strayed a foot too far from the basket as he hung his towels to dry. It was Feliks' fault that the Polish acted out because Feliks was Poland and therefore responsible for everything that went wrong in Ivan’s life.
Somehow. Somehow it made sense to Ivan, and Feliks didn’t bother arguing with him. Not after the first few disastrous attempts at baiting Ivan into letting some secret slip. The only thing that ever slipped was Ivan’s façade of cheerfulness as he worked to make Feliks regret being born.
Which he did, frequently. Feliks always regretted being born, but Ivan had a special talent for making him regret it even more. He was just so…methodically violent. Like he was following a perfectly optimized checklist of things to destroy.
Feliks would be impressed if Ivan hadn’t been doing this to make his life a living hell. He might have even found comfort in the structural procedure of his torment if Ivan’s visits weren’t so randomly spaced.
It always started with fake pleasantries, where they would awkwardly bid each other hello and ask “How have you been.” They both lied every time, so Feliks isn’t sure why they bothered with the tradition. Maybe it was meant to create a false sense of comradery between them. Maybe Ivan had been gauging if Feliks had finally snapped and might try to kill him.
Which he did try a few times. Good fun, even if it turned out poorly for him.
Following their fake pleasantries was usually a meal of sorts. He didn’t have a table they could eat at—Ivan had confiscated nearly all his furniture ages ago, along with everything sharp—so they sat on his lumpy couch and ate whatever pitiful food Ivan brought for him.
When he finished eating Ivan would beat him. He always went for the face first, focusing his overwhelming strength on the fragile bones in Feliks’ nose. Then he’d ensure that Feliks had a split lip to match his broken nose before kicking Feliks in the ribs a few dozen times.
The beatings were never too bad. They never killed him at least, (Well, once Ivan had stepped on his chest until his freshly broken ribs speared his heart. Both he and Ivan had been surprised when blood spewed out his mouth like a small volcano, erupting all over Ivan’s boots and pant legs. He died less than two minutes later, choking on his own blood and mucus while Ivan sighed as if he was the one who was inconvenienced by it all.), but they were punctuated with the fear of what might happen next.
Because what came next was far more painful. When Ivan got bored of beating him, he’d strip Feliks of his clothes—stare at him with a look of pure disgust—before dragging him by the hair and throwing him in front of the fireplace.
Over the countless visits Ivan paid him while he was under “house arrest,” Feliks could only recall one or two times where Ivan didn’t shove the hot fire stoker into his side. Or strike him with the heavy metal until his burns were replaced with nasty open wounds.
Normally he’d die around that time, but sometimes Ivan would stop just before killing him in order to bandage him up. Those days were blessedly rare, however, since Ivan seldom had the patience to help him heal. Feliks liked it that way: He didn’t want to have to associate his tormenter with affectionate healing.
It might have made him feel something other than hatred for Ivan, and that was the last thing he wanted.
As far as he was concerned, the torture ended with the burning. Of course, he couldn’t know for certain what happened after he died, but Ivan’s methodicalism of torture comforted him into believing that it ended there. The times he didn’t die nothing else happened, so he had to believe that the times he did die nothing else happened as well.
Although…
Ivan did try to fuck him once. It was only the one time though, and he didn’t even go all the way. Feliks chooses not to count it—even if the memory bothers him sometimes—because what’s the point? Ivan didn’t go all the way so what’s the point of counting it as—
As—as…ra…
…
He remembers when Ivan got bored with him, two fingers in. When the struggling lost its little bit of charm and instead became just another thing that pissed Ivan off.
“Pathetic. To think Tolys cried out for you.”
“You’re not so good with rejection.” Feliks mocked in return.
Ivan punched him so hard that he lost three teeth. Only one of them grew back.