Characters: Anastas and his brother, Valentin
Setting: Stasi's brother's apartment
Rating: SFW, tiny bit of swearing
Summary: After Stasi's reaction to Sunny's cousin Hector he seeks out his brother for strange comfort.


Stas hadn't planned on visiting his brother during the holiday, but the incident with Hector left him shaken and uncomfortable. He hated needing his brother in any way whatsoever, but at the moment he needed some kind of a reassurance that he wasn't turning into Kostya.

He took pains to make sure Sunny would be okay for the afternoon and took a train into Burnham City. It wasn't so far from where Sunny lived and he didn't want to risk traveling by magic. The apartment was easy enough to find and Val buzzed him in after a bit of a shock.

What's that little shit doing here? Valentin stood at his door with wild curiosity held in check by the animosity the brothers usually felt toward one another. He ushered Stas out of the hallway and into his living room unsure of what to say or do next.

Stas frowned at his brother before pacing a bit like a caged animal. "Tell me I am not like him."

Valentin had absolutely no point of reference for this statement. He was bursting with questions and wasn't in the mood to play by Stasi's rules. "What are you even doing here? How'd you get here?"

"I took a train," Stas answered absently. Undeterred he pressed forward. "I am not turning into our father."

"I should hope not," Val replied with an upraised eyebrow. "You took a train all the way from California?"

"New York City. I am staying with a friend for the holiday."

Val knew what that was all about. The less time any of them spent with Kostya the better. If the boys ever managed to get along for more than twenty minutes Stas might hide out over the holidays at his apartment, but after a day they'd get under each other's skin and it would quickly become untenable. "What happened then?"

"I had a confrontation. I almost lost control." Stas took a seat on the edge of Val's couch. Elbows resting on knees, his head in his hands, he stared straight at the carpet. "I could have killed him. This piece of shit that hurt my girl." He swore in Russian and then cursed himself silently for saying my girl when really he'd meant to be much more vague.

Now this was getting interesting. Val took his own seat in the big, comfy chair and leaned forward as Stasi dropped little breadcrumbs for him to follow. There were several reasons why Anastas didn't want to turn into their father, but there was only one that stuck out in Val's mind. He had his own theories about what really happened to their mother. Her death had been attributed to a vampire, but Val didn't doubt for a second that their father had a hand in it. Of all the people in the world who shouldn't have been together, shouldn't have had kids… Their parents had never won any awards for being decent human beings.

Stas waited for Val to comment, but when his older brother didn't say a word he looked up. "He is a murdering bastard." That was as close as Stas would wander to the truth. He couldn't confirm anything for Val because his older brother's honor would kick in and he'd challenge Kostya to a duel only to be crushed. "I cannot turn into him."

The brothers had one thing in common: none of them wanted to be like their father.

Valentin slipped into Russian like a second skin he missed wearing. "You are nothing like him, Anastas. You are your own mess entirely."

Stas replied with a snort of derisive laughter. "Do not speak to me of messes and mistakes."

"Then we should stop talking about you."

That was his cue to leave before the conversation degraded further. Stas crossed the room and had his fingers curling around the doorknob before he thought to turn back. "Thank you."

Val shrugged. "Think nothing of it." He watched his brother leave and shook his head slowly. He wouldn't see Stas again until the summer and even then they would probably exchange fewer words than they had today.

Stas kept his hands in his pockets on the train back to Sunny's. He was so deep in his thoughts he almost missed his stop. If he could help it, Stas wasn't going to turn out anything like his father. If he managed to turn out at all.

Tags: !complete