Chapter Text
It was about time you’d get a new number. Each time your phone buzzed or rang, you felt sick with an eerie mix of contempt, fear, and heartache.
You knew that all those missed calls and unanswered text messages should be left ignored, but despite the hurt and the feeling of violation that was still stuck inside every fiber of your body, the yearning for what had been remained intense, no matter how many days passed with you tied to the safety of your bed, hidden underneath your duvet, as if things might get back to normal one day if only you avoided dealing with reality for long enough.
You felt unable to make a sound whenever you felt the weight of one of your parents sitting down on the edge of your bed, asking whether you were hungry or wanted to go outside for a few minutes to get some fresh air. Their tone was too gentle and kind in your opinion. After betraying their trust, lying, stealing, taking all they’d done for you and spitting on it, driven so far to be willing to leave it all behind for a demon that would’ve soon devoured you entirely, leaving only the empty shell of your body behind, you felt undeserving of the care and understanding they offered you.
You could imagine the guilt that weighed down on the shoulders of your parents, threatening to crush them. How could they be angry with you when they were faced with the realization that you’d almost slipped through their fingers entirely, almost dragged away into the depths of hell by said demon? It upset you that there were no punishments, no screaming, blaming you when all you longed for was a way to atone for what you’d done.
Beneath your blanket, where all sounds were muffled and incoherent, their tender, pleading voices were drowned out by the deafening buzzing and ringing of your phone, taunting and mocking you for your naivety.
Your life wouldn’t have turned out the way it did if only your parents had had the same influence on you that Nikolai did, which was crazy, considering he’d been a stranger to you for the first 15 years of your life.
You had always known that your mother wasn’t an only child, but her brother was a taboo topic that was never discussed at home. Nobody in your family seemed to be fond of him, and if he was ever brought up in a conversation, you could almost hear your relatives grind their teeth. He was the epitome of a black sheep, resented by your relatives with no exception. They’d never told you why they’d stopped reaching out to him, or why he was never visiting, and so your uncle remained a mystery to you.
All that you knew about him was his name and that he existed. Somewhere.
The night he had shown up unannounced was turbulent, but hardly comparable to the following months in terms of intensity. Despite their anger, an outburst that had woken you up that night, your parents hadn’t been heartless enough to send Nikolai back to where he came from and had reluctantly allowed him to stay in the guest room. Apparently, he needed a temporary place to stay now, or so he'd explained that night, though your parents had already voiced their doubt about this being the complete explanation for his visit since Nikolai was known for leaving bits of the truth out of his stories.
Nobody had ever told you much about your uncle’s character, but it took hardly a week for you to understand why he had a bad reputation. Whatever image of him you’d made up in your mind over the years– he was far worse than that.
Nikolai never cleaned up after himself, left dirty dishes in the sink, or abandoned them on the coffee table in the living room. His sense of humor and his coarse, vulgar way of talking left no doubt that Nikolai was a textbook man-child. He rarely made it out of bed before noon, and he lazed around all day, doing nothing even remotely productive besides purging the fridge and sprawling out on the couch to watch TV, until he got bored and left the house, often not returning until the early morning hours.
He drank too much, usually when he went out, since your parents had at some point locked away their liquor, he drove around intoxicated and occasionally threw up in the front yard before he helplessly tried to find the keyhole of the front door, and after many attempts, stumbled inside and passed out in his room, where he stayed until you returned home from school. Therefore, it was usually you who had to deal with him, since your parents worked at jobs that kept them busy until the early evening.
Your mother never tried to deny the reasons for keeping her distance from her brother for years when you eventually asked why; descriptions of his youth sounded troublesome, making you understand why they had tried to shield you from him as much as they could. Even you understood that there couldn’t possibly have been a worse influence on their daughter than Nikolai. But now that he was here, inevitably in your presence, they had enough faith in you to be responsible enough to make your own decisions, you were already fifteen, after all, and staying away from Nikolai if possible, was one of the choices they had no doubt you’d make.
Even you had believed that. At least in the beginning.
Despite his insufferable behavior - you weren’t safe from his lack of consideration either, since you were also the unlucky one who had to share a bathroom with him, the one that had previously been yours alone, and he always seemed to occupy it when you needed to use it - you were not entirely displeased with having your uncle around. Because besides being a messy nuisance, Nikolai was undeniably handsome.
His facial features resembled a mild similarity to your mother's, but he still looked different than his older sister. Unlike her mane, Nikolai’s hair was the color of an ashy platinum blond, and only one of his eyes had the same color as those of your mother. His other eye was not only mismatched in terms of color, much lighter and paler, but it also had a scar on it. You liked to make up all sorts of theories of why it was there, but you’d never dared to ask so far.
Not rarely did you catch yourself looking at him for a bit too long, when he sat on the other side of the kitchen table on Saturday mornings, munching his, or rather, your cereals - you’d given up on asking him to not eat them, as they were your favorites; he never listened anyway - with half-lidded eyes and disheveled bed hair, wearing nothing but an old shirt and a pair of boxers, possessing no modesty at all, not even around a minor.
When you returned from school one day, you wiped the muddy soles of your boots on the doormat before you kicked them off and left them near the heater at the entrance door so they could dry. You unwrapped yourself from your woolen scarf and the coat that had kept you warm outside, took off your mittens, and pressed your warm hands against your cold, rosy cheeks.
You sniffled and searched for a tissue in the pocket of your coat that already hung on the rack, but when you couldn’t find one, you sighed and decided to get a new package from the bathroom. Just as you opened the door, you almost ran face-first into the exposed back of a man whose presence you still had to get used to. Right, Nikolai also used the bathroom that you occasionally forgot was no longer your own and therefore didn’t knock when the door was closed.
“Morning.”
Unbothered by the sudden disturbance, Nikolai looked at you through the mirror, one hand holding the edge of the sink for support as he leaned forward. His other hand was holding a razor, carefully dragging it over his jaw. Your uncle would be standing before you completely naked if it weren’t for the old towel that hung dangerously low around his hips. His skin was still slightly wet, a few droplets of water rolling down his toned back and over the tattoos around his ribs that you’d seen before– this was not the first time you saw your uncle topless, involuntarily, of course. Nikolai didn’t pay much attention to neither you nor to your piercing stare as he shaved with his brows furrowed in concentration.
„Morning? It’s already 3 p.m.," you replied.
You didn’t want to, but it was too tempting to stare at Nikolai’s bare torso and then imagine the rest of him that was hidden by the towel. Nikolai rinsed the blade of his razor under the stream of water that ran out of the tap before angling it at his jaw again.
“Huh,” he huffed, his eyebrows raised in surprise. “Well, I just woke up.”
He looked at you again, through the reflection of the mirror, without turning around. He ignored how you rolled your eyes in disbelief, or he simply hadn’t noticed it.
“By the way, did you need something, darl? I’d love to have a chat with you, but I need to shave, as you can see,“ Nikolai said, not at all bothered by the amount of naked skin he was currently flashing at his niece.
You took a deep breath and tried your best to keep eye contact. You felt your heart pounding in your chest, and your face was bright red - your reflection in the mirror betrayed your embarrassment. There was no way Nikolai did not notice how you were staring at him a minute ago, but then again, he was probably being so exhibitionistic because your reaction amused him. Or he was just that indifferent to basic etiquette.
“I just needed some tissues,” you murmured and finally turned away to yank open the bathroom drawer, rummaging through a mess of skincare products, packs of cotton pads, a few boxes of tampons, and some single-use razors. Cheap, and with a neon pink rubber grip, that looked just like…
You turned around and took a glance at Nikolai.
“Did you take one of my razors?” you asked, a bit more snappy than necessary. Not only did it anger you that your uncle did not bother to put some clothes on when his fifteen-year-old niece was around, but the fact that he took your belongings without asking broke the camel’s back. And he must’ve seen your tampons when taking the razor, inevitably. Dear god, this situation could hardly become more uncomfortable for you.
“Yeah, I needed one,” Nikolai replied nonchalantly.
“They’re mine. The least you could do is ask if you may have one,” you snapped, getting even angrier when Nikolai started giggling.
“Sorry, sweetie, but there was nobody at home whom I could’ve asked. Besides, do you even have use for them?” With that, he looked at you over his shoulder with an impish grin. He must’ve found it hilarious to tease you to not end. Humiliation spread in your abdomen and tinted your cheeks an even deeper shade of red when it clicked and you understood what Nikolai was hinting at.
You slammed the drawer shut and stomped out of the bathroom with a deep line between your furrowed brows. You’d forgotten about your runny nose by now, leaving without the tissues that you’d come here for.
“One more thing,” you said with a furious glare, targeted at your uncle, who looked like he hadn’t been this entertained in ages, amusement plastered on his face, half of which was still smeared with shaving cream.
“Lock the damn door, that's why there’s a key!” He huffed and leaned back against the sink with his arms crossed over his naked chest. Why, oh why did you feel the need to keep gawking at his body?
“I don’t mind anyone walking in. I’m not as uptight as my niece is.”
“I’m not uptight, I just don’t want to see your naked body, Nikolai!” you said defensively, and honestly, you were not very convincing. As if to confirm your worry, Nikolai grinned, flashing his flawless, pearly white teeth at you.
“Yes, and pigs might fly!“ he laughed. „You’ve been staring the whole time. Are you that desperate to see more, hm? Cause I could surely help with that.”
Nikolai dropped the razor into the sink and reached for the towel around his waist, grabbing the hem. He wasn’t seriously planning to unwrap it, was he? Before you could figure out whether this was one of his crude jokes or if he would seriously expose his privates to you like that, you hurried out of the room and slammed the door shut behind you.
Nikolai’s fit of laughter was still able to be heard when you sprinted upstairs into your bedroom and threw yourself onto your bed. Burying your face in your pillows, you waited for the pounding in your chest to stop and squeezed your eyes shut to stop your head from spinning. What was wrong with you? Why had you reacted like that? Surely, Nikolai must take you for an immature and prudish child now. And besides, he must’ve been joking, you thought. He would’ve never seriously done what you had feared he’d do. He was a troublemaker for fun, he liked to get reactions out of people, the more intense, the better, but he’d never cross that line, would he? You were related by blood, after all, and he was at least twice your age.
You spent the rest of the afternoon inside your room, and when your parents, after they’d returned from work, called you for dinner, you pleaded for your mother to bring you something to eat upstairs, as you weren’t feeling too well. There was no way you could face Nikolai again today. Not after what happened earlier. And especially not when you knew exactly that deep down, you had hoped to get a peek of what he’d nearly exposed.