Chapter Text
The mood in the van relaxes considerably when Tolya shows up with the others in tow– none of them look in the best shape, Tolya is clearly shaken, Jim has taken a few hits, Joyce is frazzled and shaking out a hand, and Bell…
“What happened?” Murray asks. “No, no, not on my bed, with all that blood, what happened to you?”
“I mauled a Russian.” She shrugs.
“Okay… okay, uh… fuck. Jim, you’re paying to get my upholstery cleaned. Bell, you can take the middle, we’ll move to the back.”
“Why am I paying to clean your upholstery?”
“Because it’s your daemon tracking the blood in!” He gestures wildly, before turning to Alexei. “We’re going to move into the back.”
“Oh. O-okay.” He nods, a little anxious but perfectly willing to trade places. He kicks his shoes off before lying down, to avoid tracking anything from them onto the bed, and he startles when Tolya cuddles right up into his space, relaxing when he realizes that yes, of course they can touch. It’s confirmation, and his face lights up as he ruffles Tolya’s fur, rubbing at his cheeks and his neck, the two of them sharing a little laugh before collapsing down to the mattress. Alexei finds a space where the huge stuffed Woody Woodpecker will fit, but beyond that, he keeps all his attention on Tolya.
Murray flops down next to him, as the van peels out, all of them rocking against each other a little, and Pav crawls up to settle on his chest.
“Sorry. About before.” Murray says, a little tentative in reaching up to rub at his ears. “I didn’t… You’re not so bad.”
“You expected something better?”
“In all honesty? No. But… there’s nothing you could have been that I wouldn’t have had something unflattering to say about. That’s just… where I’ve been, lately.”
“And there’s nothing you could have had to say, that he wouldn’t have defended. I’m just you… and not just you.” His tail wags once, when Murray gets the right spot behind his ear. “I’m the part of you that he needed the most. Observant, careful, clever… a survivor type. None of that pesky self-loathing. And… now he’s got the rest of you. You’ll take care of him, right?”
“I’ll try.”
“And give him things? I never could do that.”
“It’s not a daemon’s job to give a person things.”
“Maybe not. But I’ve been looking out for him since… always. Since we were born, and I… I was me while he was barely beginning to be him. And I always wanted to give him things. Anything. He knows how to go without. It doesn’t have to be… what you give him, don’t worry about it not being enough, it will be. Just… give him something.”
“I will. Tolya thinks a house. I don’t… I don’t know, if the same things he thinks of would make Alexei happy, but… he can’t be so far off, can he?”
“He would like a house– privacy. We’ve never had that. A place that would be just the four of us…” Pav looks over to where Alexei is happily cuddling against Tolya. “Any place that could be just the four of us.”
“That I can do. Whatever I find… I need space. Security. But… maybe it could be homier. I just… I want to make him happy.”
“You will.”
“I wish… I was… better, once.”
“If it’s the age thing… I wouldn’t worry about that.”
“The age thing. The… been-a-while-since-I’ve-taken-care-of-myself thing? The… the I-lost-my-career thing. Mostly that. I was somebody, before… maybe I wasn’t much, but I was enough. I wasn’t a madman living in a warehouse, with a shotgun next to the door, I was… better. I think… I used to be someone I’d have been proud to give him. Now? I don’t know anymore.”
Pav noses at him, gentle. “Still… I’m glad we found you.”
-
There’s not anything Steve can promise or do. There’s nowhere left that they can go. They’re trapped, taking cover and listening to the progress the guards are making searching for them, and he can’t help but feel responsible. He’s the oldest, after all. He’s done this shit– well, not this shit, but he’s done shit before, and he should have… well, he doesn’t know what, but he still feels like he should have done it. He should have figured it out and done it.
He doesn’t know how far Zan will have to go, to find the person he belongs with, if something happens to him. Neither of them know how far, or what direction, that’s kind of the thing about not having found your soulmate yet, there’s someone out there that Zan could go to… but what if he can’t ever find him? What if he’s just alone?
And even that is easier than thinking about the guards being able to catch him. He doesn’t know what they could do to him, in the absence of Steve’s soulmate, if any physical injury would stick. But they could keep him locked up, and that’s still unacceptable.
He guesses if they kill him, then Zan will run– but he worries he won’t run this time, if they take him prisoner, not after seeing what happened to him the first time.
He looks between Dustin and Robin, and wills them to just… run, run in different directions, just scatter and let Steve throw himself at whoever finds them. He tenses, readies himself as much as he thinks it’s possible to, and the whole world explodes around them.
-
“I waited for you.” Tolya whispers, gently butting his head into Alexei. “I wanted to find you. As long as I can remember, I wanted to find you.”
“I didn’t expect you to be so big.” Alexei laughs, petting at him. His fur is so soft. “I didn’t think you could be. Am I– am I what you thought I would be like?”
“Braver.”
“Me? Brave?”
“Yes. To come all this way. And to go through everything that has happened to you all day! And then, when Jim grabs you, and I was very afraid…”
“Well, so was I.”
“But… you were okay after that. And… when we came here, and it was all new, you were brave, too. Of course, it is easier to be brave when something new is fun, like a carnival, but still I think it is brave.”
“Maybe you’re right.” He allows. There had been a little trepidation, in navigating the carnival alone, unable to speak the language, but the joy had outweighed the fear.
“I am always right.” His long tail gives a single elegant twitch, and Alexei laughs again, and rubs at his side a little more vigorously.
“That… you do get from me.”
“You will be happy with us.” He wraps one arm around Alexei, big soft paw firm against his back. “I promise. You will want to stay… whatever our new home will be like. Because! You also like Woody Woodpecker, like me, we will watch together every week.”
“Woody Woodpecker… you watch him every week?” Alexei tilts to look to where the plush is tucked alongside Murray’s pillows, bolstering them a little so that if the van were to brake hard, there would be more of a soft wall keeping them from injury. “Well… maybe you can cuddle with him, then. I don’t mind sharing him with you… if you share Murray with me.”
“I will share– he is very nice to cuddle. And– Murray is a good cook sometimes! My favorite is when he makes chicken, and then the next day, chicken soup. And he gives some to me always.”
“I like soup. I’m sure I will be very happy, and Pav also. To be with the both of you.”
“Sometimes we visit Mama. She makes lamb sometimes, which I like, but Murray does not. He gives his to me and then he complains when we are alone.”
“Murray’s mother? Is she the one who taught him to be a good cook?” He asks, fondness welling up in him at the idea. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to speak to his mother again, or even get word to her… but he remembers her kitchen fondly. He remembers learning to bake from her. He remembers her soups.
“No. Soup recipe yes, but mostly he goes from cookbooks, only, you have to put in more garlic than the book says.”
“Well, I like garlic, too. And… does she– does she know, that we…?”
“Yes. She will like you. She will just be happy that you are here. We visit sometimes, not so often. When we lived in the city, it was easier, now it is a long drive, and then she will say it is too late to drive back, stay here, and Murray will say if he is tired, he will pull off at a rest stop and there is a bed in the back, and she will say he is being ridiculous, guest room is right there… and then I will say I want to stay and drive in the morning and then we stay.”
“I see.” He smiles, looking back over to where Murray and Pav are getting to know each other. They speak an easy blend of English and Russian, and he doesn’t eavesdrop on the parts he can understand– he thinks they both need the chance to get to know their missing piece a bit, for that to be a private thing. “He does not deny you very much, then, does he?”
“He likes to pretend to be grumpy.” Tolya tugs Alexei into an even firmer hug, pushing his face into Alexei’s chest with a happy little chuff of air. “But usually when he says no, he means later it is yes.”
“I will keep that in mind.”
“We will make a home for you. And you’ll stay?”
“We’ll stay.”
“Good. And, we can all sleep in bed together like this, every night.” He raises his voice a little, to carry over to Pav and Murray.
“In winter maybe.” Murray cuts in.
“We will not sleep in bed together every night?” Tolya lifts his head, looking faintly betrayed.
“There’s not enough room for all four of us in my bed– my real bed at home– not when it’s hot. Sharing a bed with just you in the summer is enough to roast a man alive… And– Alexei might… Alexei might want to have a bed of his own, to begin with. Most people get to know each other a little before they move into the same bed, you know. He gets to do that.”
“And… when we do share a bed, we might prefer some privacy?” Alexei adds, twisting around again to look at him. He’s grateful, of course– the concession to his comfort, when he has so much to adjust to, allowing him his privacy and his personal space– his autonomy even as he may have to rely on Murray for a lot. But eventually… they will, won’t they? Murray will want to… to kiss him, to kiss his throat, to undress him? To… to have him, in all the ways he never dared dwell on? All the things he could start thinking about now…
“Oh.” Tolya huffs, head dropping back down. “For sex.”
“Some nights.” Alexei tries not to laugh. Tries not to think– just yet– about what that might mean. He’ll have time to think about it once they actually have privacy and the chance to act on it, when they aren’t worried for their lives and when the key has been destroyed.
“Well… I wanted for him to have that, but I didn’t think it meant I would not sleep in the bed. All night?”
“Those nights, you will sleep with Pav, you two can keep each other company. You can keep Woody Woodpecker in bed with you when I am with Murray, remember?” He gives him a good scritch from just behind one ear down along the neck, before carefully rolling himself onto his back. “And… when it’s cold enough, we can all share like this sometimes. Pav… you would share with Tolya some nights?”
He pretends to need to think about it, but his ears swivel their way, and the wag of his tail is ‘friendly interest’ rather than agitation or aggression. Not quite like a dog’s tail wag, either, Alexei wouldn’t say, but he’s learned to read it. There’s something half-dog, half-cat about the way Pav’s tail expresses his feelings.
“I don’t see why not.” He says at last, with an exaggerated yawn, the way he does when he feels playful. “He’s pretty nice to sleep next to.”
“Good. Then that’s settled.” Alexei meets Murray’s eye. “Sometimes… it will just be us.”
“Glad we got that ironed out.” Murray nods. “Sometimes it will just be us. Whenever… whenever you feel comfortable, with that.”
“Whenever we feel comfortable.” He bridges the barely-there gap between their hands. Murray’s is soft, is warm but dry. There’s a comfort in the way it wraps around his own. Here, tucked between Murray and Tolya, Alexei feels secure. Yes, he’s lying on an old mattress in the rear of a fast-moving van instead of in a seat with a seatbelt, but… he feels safe anyway.
-
“I don’t understand what happened to that car.” Robin says, ears still ringing. All of Steve’s weird child friends are here, and his ex girlfriend and her… soulmate? And… the little girl whose sole mission in life, as far as Robin can tell, is making her life miserable, and also a kid she doesn’t think she knows. And also they definitely have more daemons than people with them, although she guesses maybe one of the dogs is just a dog?
“El has superpowers.” Dustin says.
“I’m sorry?” Maybe she got hit in the head harder than she thought. Maybe the drugs are still in her system. Maybe she got shot and this is a dying hallucination where a superpowered child saves them.
“Superpowers.” Steve says, like it’s normal. Like Robin should just keep up. “She threw it with her mind.”
“Who’s El?”
“I’m sorry, who are you?” Miss Priss herself demands. Like she doesn’t obviously work here? Does she have a sign over her head that says ‘after being interrogated by Russians, I really need the third degree again right now’?
Also, it kind of stings that she knows exactly who Nancy is and Nancy has to ask like she could be anybody. No ‘weren’t you friends with Barb Holland in middle school’ or ‘did we have English together freshman year’ or nothing.
“I’m Robin. I work with Steve.”
“She cracked the top secret code.” Dustin says. Definitely her favorite weird child.
Not that it’s a super tight race, all things considered.
“Yeah, which is how we found out about the Russians.”
“Wait, what Russians?”
“The Russians!” Steve yells, a little, not that she blames him.
“Oh my god , what do you mean what Russians?” If Steve had yelled a little, Zan is basically shrieking. “What do you goddamn think we’ve been fucking dealing with for the past twenty four hours? I mean jesus christ, look at Steve! Do those look like normal ice cream-related injuries to you people?”
“Didn’t you hear our code red?”
“Uh, did we hear you squawking? Yes. Did we hear anything about Russians? That would be a no.” The sample policy abuser says, hand on hip, and how does she fit into any of this?
“Erica.” One of Steve’s child friends hisses. “God, why are you even here?”
“Because you and your friends decided to drag me into some reckless child endangerment shit?”
“You didn’t have to come!”
“Mom said–”
“Do you always do what mom says?”
“Yes! I’m the good child! You were supposed to watch me, not watch me almost get eaten!”
“You cannot tell mom and dad about any of this. Ughhh.”
“Hi, yeah, back to what’s important.” Dustin cuts into the sibling bickering. “We have a full-blown Red Dawn situation!”
“And we don’t have Patrick Swayze bailing us out, either.” Cara, still a rabbit, stamps her foot.
“Steve’s our Patrick Swayze.” Zan looks up at him. “Right?”
“Uhh, depends, how bad did Swayze get his ass kicked in that movie? ‘Cause… I feel… the least Swayze I’ve ever felt?”
“Sorry, is there a most Swayze you’ve ever felt?” Robin snorts.
“The Comeback Kid?” Cara guesses. Steve doesn’t exactly have Outsiders vibes.
“I don’t know, god.” He groans. He’s about to say something else, when El, who apparently has car-flipping superpowers, hits the floor, crying out in pain.
-
“All right, all right.” Murray takes a deep breath, squeezing Alexei’s hand gently, hugging Pav to his chest. Jim and Joyce’s kids are at the mall. “That’s not concerning at all.”
“Give to me the walkie-talkie.” Tolya demands, hopping up to rest his front paws on the back of the seat. “Bell, please.”
“What are you going to do with it? You don’t have hands.”
“You have hands. You can try to find out what is happening.”
“Yeah, pass us back the walkie.” Pav’s tail gives an agitated wag. “You can’t exactly ask for information on the problem children.”
Joyce hands the walkie back to Bell, he guesses, because then Tolya is dropping it into his and Alexei’s hands.
“I don’t…”
“Just hold the button.” Pav says, clearing his throat. “Situation report! Where are the intruders now?”
Nothing. After a pause for anything else, Alexei presses the button for him again.
“The threat on our end has been neutralized, what about the intruders? Situation back at base, report!”
“Looks like we’ll be going in with or without the cavalry.” Murray pats Pav gently, before letting him go to curl up in Alexei’s arms. Tolya gives his fur a couple good licks to settle him. “Alexei… whatever happens, I– Obviously you won’t be going in. If I leave you my keys, you can drive these kids to safety once we can get them out to the van, maybe?”
“Maybe. You would go in?”
“The thing is… you, they’ll shoot on sight if they think you’ve been compromised–”
“Best case scenario.” He nods.
“Me, I understand the language, I have your instructions for taking the key out, I’m pretty talented when it comes to bullshit artistry… and…”
“It’s kids.” Another little nod. “And you can’t let something happen to you friends’ kids.”
“Again, ‘friend’ is a strong word right now, but… anyone’s kids. I don’t like kids, but damned if I’m going to let them get hurt.” Murray sighs, bringing Alexei’s hand up to his lips. He presses a firm kiss to the back, rests his cheek against it. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you get hurt.”
“If you go into the base… Pav should go with you. He knows the way, you won’t have to worry about getting turned around– and, he can help you avoid running into people. It might mean taking a few detours, hiding out while people pass, but…”
“And Tolya with you. That’s a good plan– Pav won’t be recognized if he’s with a completely different person. Tolya… you and Alexei will keep each other safe, won’t you?”
“I will.” He promises, rubbing his face against Alexei’s shoulder. “We will. You will not be long? You will hurry?”
“Yeah.” He lets go of Alexei’s hand, so he can reach past him to rub at Tolya’s cheek. “We’ll be careful. In and out. As soon as we have the kids safe, I can… I can disable the key. Then I’m getting the hell out of that place before it can blow. I promise.”
“We’ll come back.” Pav licks Alexei’s cheek, then turns to lick Tolya’s nose, which earns him about the most pleased face a snow leopard can make.
Jim pulls into the mall parking lot, braking hard enough that they all slide forward a little, though the enormous Woody Woodpecker helps cushion them a little.