Did You Miss Me?

[Verne]

Verne got home from the meeting hung over and beat up; this was becoming a regular occurrence since he’d taken the marks of a Paladin. He stumbled across the room and fell into his bed; it wasn’t as comfortable as Dominique’s had been but he was tired enough that even a bed of nails would have done the trick. It had just gone seven in the evening and the sun had set, a cold chill rising from the ground to which it had set during the day; filling his small trailer house with the kind of chill that made you want to curl up in the blankets and sleep till winter had passed.

He had managed a shower before the meeting but already the cold of winter’s embrace was settling into his flesh, seeping right down to the bone. Any bare skin was quickly covered by the blankets as he grabbed them from the middle and rolled over to cover him completely. His nose was cold. His toes were cold. Hell even the pits of his arms were cold and that was something he hadn’t experienced in a long time; the kind of thing that after you’d had a taste of it, you never wanted to chance knowing it again.

The tall Paladin lay there in the dark starving, freezing and was all-round miserable. How could six months afford him so much trouble; Dom had been turned and she was now seeing a giant of a man exactly the same as she was, dead, cold, Vampire. The Order fringed on the cuffs of life and death and had he left his return only a few weeks more he feared it would had been lost completely. Verne had managed to breathe new life into the dying flame, causing it to flicker and then roar until it soared to new heights, burning the sky; now bigger and better than it had ever been and still growing.

A thud at the door made Verne still up, abandoning his thoughts and the warmth of the covers. He wriggled to the end of the bed and climbed out, slipping across the floor in his woolly socks to answer the front door. “Yo,” he smiled as he looked up and met the eyes of someone he didn’t expect to see for a long, long time yet, at least not until he decided it was safe to take another trip back to Russia; and that would have been in no less than two or three years’ time.

“Arseny… What the **** are you doing here?”

[Vladimir (DELETED 5105)]

All he had intended to do was post the letter, to tell Yavok how heartless he had been to come home for six months, give them a little money and think even for a second that it gave him a free pass to run away and forget them all; leaving him and their younger sister to look after Ma. Their mother had already suffered from two heart attacks this year and looked most days as if she would gleefully welcome a third, or anything for that matter that might finally end her life for good. Sometimes Arseny thought he might have the strength to pick up the pillow while the woman slept and smother her until any life left in her half paralyzed body fled this world for the next, just to end her suffering.

He had made it as far as the post office. He had even licked the stamp, jotted the address down on the sealed envelope and raised it to the drop box before the urge to act overwhelmed the common sense that screamed at him to stay. Arseny had traded the letter for a one way ticket to Harper Rock and followed the details his older brother had left him, the single address and nothing more. He knew Yavok wasn’t going to be impressed by his leaving home, leaving their sister to cope all on her own; but sometimes you have to follow your heart instead of your head and this was one of those times.

The entire plane ride had tied his stomach in knots with worry; Arseny had always looked up to his big brother and never put a foot out of line when he was around; this was rebellion at its finest and he didn’t know how well his role-model was going to take it. By the time he had gotten through customs and found a taxi the man was cold and tired and could think of nothing better than a warm bed to curl up in and save this argument with Yavok for the following morning, but as soon as he had stepped outside he felt blood call to blood. He paid the driver a fair which would get him as far as the trailer park, but he would have to wander around until he found the one that belonged to Verne.

“Yavok,” Arseny said, looking a little confused by the expression on his older brother’s face. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

Of course he knew his brother would be torn by the sight of him, he knew how the man who was older by only two years took to these kinds of unplanned visits. He put his duffel bag down on the ground and licked his suddenly dry lips before speaking. “Just for a little while… Please… I had to get away from them; you don’t know what it’s like anymore! I just couldn’t stand another day of watching her suffer!” Arseny Blurted it all out, all the things he knew would be going through his brother’s mind; the same thoughts that must have promoted the disapproving look that hardened his features now.

[Verne]

His left hand went through the stringy blonde hair on his head, a tangled mess he had to fight to comb his burly digits through. Verne knew exactly what his little brother was talking about; he had lived it for years and years after their father had passed away, leaving him responsible for his two younger siblings and their sick mother. He was too tired to argue with Arseny now and standing here with the front door open would leave the trailer cold. “Get inside,” he hissed,” and slammed the door once the man had managed to drag his bag inside.

There wasn’t much sitting room inside; half of Verne’s trailer was dedicated to his work, both with The Order and his tattooing. The only place for them where there was any shred of room was the bedroom and Verne decided his little bro looked as tired as he did. “I hope you don’t mind sharing because I really don’t find it comfortable sitting in the leather studio chair.”

Verne lay down on his queen sized bed and packed the pillows behind him so that he could sit up comfortably and flick the television on. He went through some of the channels and stopped on some kind of movie that didn’t look too serious; Jack Reacher starring Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, and a few other celebrities he recognised. He had watched the movie before so he wouldn’t this time for the plot but to busy his gaze, which he feared to he cast on Arseny knowing the younger man hated to see that he was disappointed with him.

[Vladimir (DELETED 5105)]

No fight? This wasn’t like Yavok at all, at the very least Arseny had expected to be punched, in the shoulder if not the face. He picked up his duffel bag and moved inside the trailer which barely had room to swing a cat; at least it made him feel like he hadn’t left home. Arseny followed Verne to the bedroom and looked around the small space, the bed almost crammed up against both walls; Yavok wasn’t living a life of luxury that was for sure.

Arseny put his bag down and bent over to undo his laces where he noticed Verne didn’t do the same, the laces on all of his shoes still tied; he was one of those slip them on and off sort of guys, whereas Arseny had always taken care of his possessions. The sound of the television going on made Arseny look up, “Jack Reacher… I love the books,” he admitted, but then Yavok knew that. Arseny used to sneak into his room at night and take the books he was reading to turn back and read from the spot he had worked his way to the night before. Sometimes Yavok didn’t finish his books and took them back to the school library early which drove Arseny insane because he hadn’t been old enough to take the same books out but loved reading.

When Arseny joined Verne on the bed he looked around the room. There wasn’t much to it, a small flat screen mounted on the wall, a dresser, a hook where he hung up his coat, a few pairs of shoes scattered to the side of the doorway. Drawings that littered one side of the wall, no doubt designs Yavok had been working on for his studio. There was a right side-table next to Verne with a dusty lamp on it and a smelly ashtray placed beneath that. A couple playboy magazines littered the floor along with some dirty clothes and Arseny turned over to realise he was lying on a used prophylactic. He pinched one end of the rubber glove and held it up, “You disgust me,” was all he said before flicking it across the room to land near the door.

[Verne]

Verne laughed, if there was ever something to find Arseny would be the one to find it; he had always been a squeaky gate, complaining about the world and how unfair everything was. To be fair the boy had done some growing up and Verne didn’t find him as annoying now as he had while they were young. It was nice for a man to help around the house and keep everything in order; sadly for Verne and unlike his brother, he just wasn’t that man. “I call that a good night,” he teased his little brother. “You would think the same if you ever got your dick wet.”

Verne knew exactly what to say to get his little brother all riled up and now that he was going to be staying for a while they might as well get reacquainted. “How long did you date that girl? Seven years and then she drops you like a bag of **** to run off with some up-town prick who doesn’t know his face from his ***. You’re a Berezin, don’t let women walk all over you like that little bro, seriously, it’s getting hard to watch.”

[Vladimir (DELETED 5105)]

Verne had been referring to Alina, Arseny’s high school sweetheart. They had broken up a couple of years ago after dating all through high school and even making a short run of a long-distance relationship when Yavok had dragged him around Europe for a year. He didn’t blame his brother for the split, it had been a long time coming; Arseny figured that out later on when he got back to Russia and saw Alina shopping in the supermarket one day with a belly as round as a stuffed turkey. Obviously there had been little heartache on her end to run off and get married to a complete stranger so quickly; only they hadn’t been strangers, had they…

Arseny unzipped his coat and took it off before tossing it on the floor along with Verne’s growing pile of dirty clothes; if Yavok wasn’t careful the pile of clothes might start breeding with whatever else he was shoving under the bed instead of tidying up and create some kind of super-bug. When Arseny put his head on the pillow he smelt cigarette ash and sat up again. “Are you kidding me, Yavok! You smoke in bed? Don’t you know how bloody dangerous that is?”

It was Arseny’s turn to be disappointed now; one of their father’s good friends had died after falling asleep on the couch with a cigarette in his mouth. The cushion had caught alight and spread to the settee and curtains, which probably suffocated the man in his sleep before he was engulfed in flames. To realise his brother was being just as stupid didn’t sit well with the younger man. Arseny turned the pillow over and put his head down to rest as more and more of the night crept by. “What do you do for work?” He asked deciding it would be better if they just tried to make small talk instead of winding each other up.

[Verne]

Verne liked the bad guy in this movie, he reminded him of another actor but just couldn’t put his finger on whom. He watched the screen intently as it came to the scene where number-one hit-man had stopped a girl on her way out of town and was convincing her that she knew him before another guy struck her over the back of the head; killing her. That was when Arseny, as he always did, interrupted. “I haven’t made a habit of it, but yes, once or twice I have,” Verne admitted before focusing on the screen again.

It wasn’t long before Arseny was asking him questions again and Verne decided that instead of bothering with the movie he should just switch it off and go to sleep. When the two of them had shared a room long before the extension had been added to the flat back home, and just before they were teenagers, Arseny used to stay up till late talking away to himself, thinking his sleeping brother was listening. It was kind of cruel, letting the little guy go on and on without saying anything, but God, sometimes he could be such a woman; Verne had put it down to too many slumber parties with Arseny’s then girlfriend Alina.

“I just landed a job with the university three days a week. Doesn’t pay that well, but it’s enough to keep this place running and stocked up with a bit of food,” Verne Explained.

The two of them lay there silently for a while after that without talking. Verne couldn’t guess what his brother was thinking, but found that his own mind was kind of full tonight. A lot had gone on in the last twenty-four hours, some of which the Paladin couldn’t rightly recall. There was something very important he had forgotten to do tonight and that was go and see Dominique. After the way things had ended last night he couldn’t just leave her hanging like that; it had already been twenty-four hours, leaving it another day might be too much. “**** it,” Verne grumbled and sat up.

“I have to go and do something… I was meant to meet a friend tonight and I completely forgot. Are you going to be alright here if I leave you?”

[Vladimir (DELETED 5105)]

In the silence Arseny realised that him staying with Yavok probably wasn’t going to be a possibility, not unless they got bunk beds and with the way Yavok lived Arseny knew that the suggestion would go down like a bag of broken bones. For the night though, it would do and come morning they could work out some kind of different arrangement or Arseny could set up a mattress on the floor. If he remembered anything from when they were young it was that Yavok liked his sleep, so he tried hard not to disturb him when the television was switched off midway through the movie his brother had been paying attention to.

Arseny closed his eyes and stitched his fingers together over his stomach. He had never been a very good sleeper and tended to move about while he slept, regularly elbowing or kicking whoever he was lying next to while he was unconscious. The man was just getting comfortable when Yavok kicked off the covers and sat up quickly. Arseny sat up too and watched as his brother got out of bed before addressing him. Arseny’s features saddened slightly… Sure Yavok had forgotten a friend… More like he didn’t want to share the same room with someone who had disappointed him with his rash actions this night. “What’s the worst that could happen?” Arseny smiled, it wasn’t like he was going to smoke in bed and burn the trailer down.

[Verne]

What was the worst that could happen? Verne laughed at his brother’s words, reminded that his sibling knew nothing of the world, not truly, not like he did. It was full of dangers the man had never comprehended before he had found the Paladin Leader out in the woods that night almost a year ago. “Oh, believe me,” Verne smirked as he slipped a belt he’d found on the floor through the loops on his jeans. “Plenty could happen, so stay inside, yeah?”

He went out into the small studio and picked up his Metallica hoody which the man slipped on over the two white t-shirts he wore and the longed sleeved, navy blue thermals under that. Verne went to the bathroom then and checked his face in the mirror; his hair was a mess of golden threads and his beard was starting to look untimely, but he just hadn’t had a moment since he’d returned to smarten up. Dominique had done him a great deed in cutting some of the length out of his hair and it no longer tickled his collar.

On the way past the bedroom Verne stopped again and looked in at Arseny who was lying in the middle of the bed like a starfish, his head mashed into the pillow and the covered stretched right up over his ears. He smiled at his younger sibling and shook his head, amused; how was he meant to crawl back into bed later if the little toad was going to sleep like that? “If anyone comes by don’t open the door, leave the lights off and if, IF, you get to talking, your name is Vladimir and mine is Verne,” he ordered. “I’m not even kidding bro; we could get into some serious **** if you don’t listen to what I’m saying.”

[Vladimir (DELETED 5105)]

“Vladimir… Like the president?” Arseny questioned, watching his brother who stood in the doorway.

Damn it, Arseny thought, was his brother into drugs or something? Were gang members showering up at his trailer every other night in order to buy their next fix? He sunk into the covers; all these thoughts really weren’t going to help him get to sleep. “Vladimir,” the man said again quietly to himself as if testing the new name out on his tongue.

His brother had got them into some sticky situations before by he had never failed to keep him safe and that meant anything he asked now, Arseny would so. When he thought about it he realised he rather like the name Vladimir anyway; it had a certain ring to it, even if it did make him seem twenty years older than he was. He waved to Verne before curling back up in the covers and worked on trying to get to sleep again.