Chapter Text
There would be moments, times where you feel control slipping slowly away from you. Like when you wake up and the twins have somehow found their way into the already snug space of your bed, sleeping in the small gap between you and their father. Ajax’s arm is long enough so that he’s wrapped them both up cozily, and you feel something in your heart tug at the sight. The trio are asleep and the picture of perfection, but that picture means to you what you so ardently do not want it to mean; something that may not last.
Cuckoo calls in the early morning, laughter at the kitchen table when you pad down the stairs, sleepy smiles in pyjamas over breakfast. Walks with Hugo in the woods, all five of you together, coming home and shuffling around the kitchen cooking dinner. You do not know when that became routine, but the struggle to imagine life without him brings you unease.
Borrowed grief for your love on borrowed time.
Yet you love him still.
He stands in the small space of the kitchen the morning of the day he is set to leave again, flipping fragrant fluffy syrniki on the stove. Nikolai is dozing off on his shoulder, drooling onto his pyjama shirt. Ajax holds him easily, like the boy was made to fit into the shoulder blade of his father. Milena sits on the counter next to the stove, little legs dangling absentmindedly as she watches the fritters cook.
You survey the mess on the dining table, flour and bits of tvorog on the surface.
Milena notices you from her perch and calls for you, startling Nikolai out of his sleep and drawing Ajax’s attention to you standing idly in the small doorway.
You smile, “good morning, my Milly.”
“Mama!”
Ajax smiles, too, and he hands your son over.
“What are you guys up to?” you ask, leaning down with Nikolai on your hip to kiss Milena on the top of her head.
“You want to tell your matusya what I taught you to make?” Ajax says, flipping the last pancake.
Your heart flutters.
“Syrniki! ” they say in unison.
“Papa said they’re pancakes but even better,” Milena supplies.
“And who’s going to help me with cleaning up that table over there?” you say, and you don’t miss the way Ajax grins at you.
The twins excitedly shout their offers of assistance and you help them down to the floor, telling them to get plates and bowls ready as you get a washcloth and wipe the table down. Ajax sneaks a kiss onto the corner of your mouth and you shake your head when he just smiles.
The smell of the cooking syrniki permeates the morning, the sizzling butter and the fragrant scent of the tvorog . Your stomach is practically begging you for the delights as you sit everyone down.
You breakfast with your twins and their father, passing around bowls of berry compote and soured cream, exchanging laughter over mouthfuls of pancakes and sips of the bulle fruit juice Ajax had made last night.
And here you are again, holding your breath as you watch for the unbridled adoration stuck in your children’s teeth when they beam at him from across the table.
“I’ll take Hugo out really quickly,” Ajax says as he gets up from his seat, placing a kiss on each of the twins’ heads before giving your shoulder a light squeeze.
He leaves promptly after putting his plate in the sink, the white beast looking like he is in desperate need of the toilet, donning a coat before he heads out into the light rainfall.
You continue breakfast with the twins, watching them scarf down their food.
“Nikolai, chew slowly,” you scold.
“But I haf’ t’ go!” he says through a mouthful of compote and syrniki .
“Where do you have to go? Eat your food slowly baby,” you reply.
“To th’ g’rden wi’ papa ‘n Hugo,” Milena answers, mouth equally as full.
The pair get up hastily, hopping off their chairs towards the front door.
You grimace, “you haven’t finished your food.”
“Papa is gonna show us more flankirovka! ” Nikolai reasons after he swallows, “please mama.”
You had thought that Ajax would keep leaving, and Nikolai and Milena would learn to be heartbroken, and you would have no means of being able to put the pieces back together in any way significant enough to allow them a normal childhood. And yet, they are so full of love, your twins. His and yours.
They understand his having to go, and though they miss him, they are still able to thrive without him being there. They are excited when he sends letters, and of course they are excited when he is home, but they are faring well.
“No,” you sigh, “at least clean up your plates first.”
They race to grab their dishes and practically trip over themselves into the kitchen to put them away. Your calls of caution fall upon deaf ears as they then race to grab their raincoats, slipping into their gumboots and sprinting outside at the highest speed their little legs will allow.
They are incandescent like this. They love him and he loves them and they will wait for him and he will keep returning to them. He is their papa, and they are his babies.
It works. You hope it is working.
You fiddle with the locket around your neck that now houses another photograph, one of you four together, and then sigh at the empty placemats that surround you on the breakfast table.
Ajax spent a long time away this time around.
His twins are starting school in a few weeks, and Nikolai is finally enrolled in dance lessons whilst Milena is going to join the scouts. They turn six in a month, and he already knows exactly how he is going to decorate the cottage for their birthday. He can imagine it even now, how you’ll be busy in the kitchen baking medovik , how he’ll get a taste of the batter from your finger and then kiss your sweet lips as he shuffles around to find scissors to trim wrapping paper. You’d scold him for buying so many presents and he’ll know you don’t mean it, and then you’ll sit with him and Hugo as he blows balloons up, the nutty scent of the baking cake filling the entire house slowly.
When Ajax wakes up from the dream, he stretches lazily, reaching over to find you on your side of the bed—except he cannot find you. His eyes shoot open and you are nowhere in the bedroom, the bedsheets long gone cold.
For a moment he imagines the worst, though he isn’t even sure what that would be. He let himself sleep soundly enough to dream for the first time in a long time, and you are gone. He stumbles out of bed and the house is silent and his heart beats against the confines of his chest as he runs out through the front door.
He breathes out a sigh of relief when he sees Milena on the porch bench, legs folded in front of her and quietly reading her book. Ajax smiles, bounding up to her with a beaming smile.
“Hey Milly,” he says, “whatcha up to?”
He reaches down to where Hugo is sitting at his daughter’s feet and pets the creature on his head. The white dog leans in, nuzzling his wet nose into his palm.
“Reading,” she replies pointedly. “You didn’t shower papa.”
Ajax looks down at his pyjamas, “I suppose I haven’t.”
She hums in acknowledgement, “mama says maggots eat you if you don’t shower.”
“Well, mama’s right, but I’m strong so I can fight them off,” he sits down next to her, tilting his head to watch her concentrated face.
She meets his eyes then, his mirror.
“Mama says they grow in your skin.”
Almighty Tsaritsa, such horror and he hasn’t even had his breakfast!
Ajax reaches up to ruffle Milena’s hair, and asks where the rest of the household has disappeared to.
“At the garden,” she replies, looking at him expectantly.
“Oh, my apologies my princess,” he says grandiosely, leaning in to kiss her soft cheek, “your morning kiss.”
His daughter giggles, patting his face before she goes back to her book.
Ajax smiles contentedly.
He finds you crouched opposite Nikolai in the patch of vegetables in the little garden, a soft smile on your face as you watch your son rifle through the ground for what Ajax assumes is definitely not worms because he knows the boy can’t stand those little things.
“Whatcha doing?” he calls out.
You look up and he is winded, disarmed by your gentle smile. Your hair is pulled back by the familiar patchwork scarf fashioned into a headscarf, and the gentle colours against your hair are as vibrant as the way his heart beats now.
“Beetroots,” you say as he approaches.
“We’re gonna make borscht! ” Nikolai adds.
You are still glancing up at him, head tilted, and he can’t help but reach down to cup your face, stroking your cheek with a whispered ‘good morning’. You lean into his touch, and the way your beam brightens almost makes him fall to his knees. He bends down, places a tender kiss to your lips.
“Eww,” Nikolai says, “gross.”
“Get used to it, buddy,” Ajax grunts, stretching out his sore back.
Nikolai sticks out his tongue at his father and he laughs.
“You okay?” you ask, concerned for his knitted brow.
“Yeah,” he says, “there was a faerie that kept me up all night.”
You scowl, hitting him on the shin with the back of your hand.
“Ow!” he says dramatically. “Hey, you remind me of her actually, she’s insatiable—”
You hit him again, gesturing to Nikolai who is still busy pulling the deep burgundy bulbs from the ground, his smile growing wider with every pluck that breaks the surface of the dirtbed.
“I was almost killed by a faerie who wouldn’t let me go to sleep because she was so damned vicious and this is the way you show concern for your dear—”
He shuts up quickly when he sees the unamused look you wear and he quickly pivots the question into a different direction.
“Are you making the borscht, little prince?”
Nikolai puts his hands up in the air excitedly, “yeah!”
Ajax hears Hugo running up from behind him suddenly, growling.
He is off his feet no later than a split-second when the familiar whizzing of an arrow flies past him. He hears the white dog barking as he runs towards the thicket of trees, Ajax’s honed instincts already zeroed in on the intruder. Another one comes and it misses him entirely, and he is upon the assassin before they could even think of nocking another arrow.
“Who sent you?” he spits, hand around the man’s throat.
“W-wait—he said I was just supposed to scare you! I didn’t—”
“ Who. Sent. You.”
The assassin whimpers with the tightening of Ajax’s grip, eyes wide with terror.
“The—at the—the Pankration Ring,” he chokes out.
“How many?”
“Wha—” his nails dig into skin, “three! It was three of them!”
Ajax’s eyes darken before he summons a blade and drives it through the man’s heart.
He stares at the limp body below him, moving it easily to rest behind a tree out of the way lest the twins stumble upon it. Though, you’ve probably already taken them inside. He will need to call for someone to deal with this.
“MAMA!”
Ajax breaks into a sprint back to the house. And then, his world stops.
“Niko, Niko, baby, hey,” it’s you, your voice.
“Mama! Mama I’m scared,” Milena, crying.
Hugo is barking.
Nikolai. An arrow in his arm.
An arrow in his son’s arm.
“Ajax!” your voice startles him, shrill and desperate and spurring him into action.
He drops down to his knees in the dirt, “let me take him.”
“He was just—where did you—”
“Now.”
“Papa, what’s happening?” Milena shakes his shoulder and Ajax can only put a hand behind her shoulder to soothe her.
You hand him over, “please Ajax, please.”
Ajax does not say anything as he wraps his arms around his son, his pallid and whimpering son. Oh gods.
“Hospital in the city,” he says.
He looks over Milena who is now safe in your grasp, and then he turns into water and moves faster than the wind.