It was hard to miss how Yulia Anokhin lit up at the first sign of company after a long night of restlessness. And even harder to miss the dart of her gaze over Ace’s shoulder to catch sight of anyone following behind him through her hospital room door. Of course, there was no one and Ace subsequently watched her eyes drop to her hands before realizing she had an audience to keep.
“Ace, hi!” Yulia beamed for him, respecting the nickname he’d introduced himself by, rather than what her brother insisted on referring to him as. And Ace gave her the satisfaction of seeing someone light right back up for her, “Yulia, hi!”
She laughed quietly and Ace felt a warmth at bringing a smile to her face that he was never quite able to achieve with either of his own siblings. “How are you feeling?” He asked as he took a seat beside her bed. To which she offered honestly, “Awful,” though the smile on her lips didn’t fade and neither did his.
“Well, that’s warranted,” Ace sighed deeply, brows raising in a manner that let Yulia know she wouldn’t have to upkeep the pleasantries with him. Not if she didn’t want to, not if she didn’t need it to cope. “You have taken a bit of a physical, emotional, and maybe even spiritual pounding if you believe in fate and all that.”
Yulia had to chuckle. “Yeah, all of the above.” And then, just as Ace noticed the fidget of her fingers on her lap, she added, “How’s my brother?”
There was no right answer so Ace chose to go with, “Stubborn,” and again, Yulia laughed. But as she began to agree, Ace spoke over her with a pointed, “Same as you.” That dampened her demeanor slightly but she only shrugged at the accusation, “You’re not going to convince me to let it go, Ace.”
Ace couldn’t bite back his fond smile. “You are so his sister, you know. Through and through. I don’t know what this other guy’s like but if he’s anything like you two, it’s a good thing you haven’t tracked him down yet. For my sake.”
Despite Ace’s joke, Yulia’s eyes drifted. She looked for a moment as though she might apologize for the secrecy but decided against it, remaining loyal to her faith in her brother’s choices.
“I’m not trying to convince you to let it go, by the way,” Ace sighed.
“Brother said you are.”
“I want you safe and him happy,” Ace insisted, brows raised at the quickness of her rebuttal. “That’s all.”
“Very diplomatic of you, Aeson,” Yulia rolled her eyes, now choosing to enunciate his name in a tease as her brother so often did.
But Ace was quick to cut down the statement. “Don’t call me that. I’m a junior, that’s my father’s name and I can’t stand it. Radimir, he’s something fierce, something magical and he loves me through the mess in my head when I hear my own name. But otherwise it just reminds me of the man that used to beat the shit out of me and my kid siblings when we were growing up.” His voice was matter of fact, devoid of the feeling that he was explaining some of the hardest things in this life for him to even come to terms with, let alone talk about. And he even let Yulia flounder for a bit, open her mouth and close it again to figure how one might respond to such revelations.
But then he presented her with an out from the tension. “Your turn. What’s your big bad hang up? Why is this so important to you that you’d fight even your brother about it?” With laser focus in his eyes he waited, as he sometimes did with the older of the two Anokhin siblings.
Yulia weighed her options, of which there were few, looking anywhere but at Ace’s unmoving gaze for a while. And then she sighed. “Because I don’t have any part of my mom for myself. Nothing. Everything I have is Radimir’s or my aunt and uncle’s or my grandparents’...and I’ve heard it all and pictured it all a thousand times already. Every story, every little memory, I’ve played in my head since I was a kid, hoping there’ll be more every time but…there’s only so much. And Mikhail…he might have more. He might have nothing too, like me, but then I could give him something so he doesn’t have nothing either.”
Yulia finally caught Ace’s eyes and hers glistened now, her voice quieting to an uncharacteristic whisper as she admitted, “It sucks having nothing, Ace.”
Ace nodded immediately, not because he could ever quite know her loss, but because everything in him ached for her, just as it did any time Radimir hurt before him. He slid a hand over the back of Yulia’s and squeezed his fingers around her lightly. With his voice dropped low and his brows furrowed, he willed himself to focus on the matter at hand rather than slipping under the weight of how deeply his heart went out to these siblings. Tightening his hold, Ace implored, “Why didn’t you tell your brother that?”
“Why didn’t he listen long enough to find out?”
Ace took a breath. Her response had been instantaneous; she’d been wondering the answer since the last time they’d seen one another and had come up short.
“Because he’s scared…” Ace answered reluctantly, his expression narrowed in a manner of understanding the risk he was taking in speaking so vulnerably. “He always gets this way when he’s afraid, he got this way when he was afraid for me too. The instinct to protect someone you love is blinding, Yulia. It’s stronger than any force on this earth, it’s illogical, it’s selfish, it’s so much to process that…I don’t think he always has space to listen when it’s happening. But…if there’s one thing I know about your brother then it’s that his love is bigger than his anger. And his sheer force of will-” He intentionally paused his sentence as a watery chuckle burst out of Yulia. “Yeah, that’s right, there’s something greater than his stubbornness. I know that and you do too.”
Yulia nodded, dragging the heel of her palm across her eyes and Ace took the opportunity of her being preoccupied to continue. “I’m not saying you have to give up on finding something more, or giving more, if that’s what it comes to. Just…wait until some of this mess blows over. Please. Don’t give him more of a reason to be afraid, at least not right now.”
Yulia opened her mouth but Ace didn’t wait to hear if she would agree or protest. “You know how curious he is too,” he insisted. “How important it is to him to have all the facts. He’ll come around, just when he doesn’t have to be so worried. And this time, I’ll be there to help out too, you have my word. But for now, you have to focus on getting better, alright? We’ll be better as a team, the three of us. But only if you’re well enough to join and we’re all on reasonably speaking terms.”
Ace let out a breath, shoulders easing as he finally got his point across. Neither of them had realized how impassioned he would grow over his plea and they both fell into a lapse of silence over it.
“You know right?” She found the courage to begin in a tone so hushed it seemed reserved for confessions. “You know that I didn’t mean to hurt him?”
Ace blinked, reading the guilt off of Yulia as easily as he could from her brother. “I do,” he granted her reprieve, though with a stipulation. “And even if he does too, I think it would be good to hear anyway. Alright?”
Yulia seemed hesitant at the notion of facing her brother again so soon, much less in some form of apology. But that didn’t deter Ace’s gaze, wiling to allow her time but ultimately pressing her for confirmation that she understood what was at stake. There was a strength in her eyes as well, a look Ace was very much accustomed to being fixed with. But eventually, Yulia released a large sigh, rolling her eyes with the aid of her chin and her shoulders as well. “Alright, alright…”
“Alright.” Ace nodded, running a relieved hand through his hair to know he wouldn’t have to push his case any further, for now at least. He expected to catch his breath in the next moments as they both came to terms with what they’d agreed upon, but Yulia wasn’t finished with him just yet.
Realizing that her hand still rested under his, Yulia gave his fingers, curled loosely around hers, several quick squeezes to pull his attention, “Ace?”
Bright blue eyes flashed upward as Ace let out a small acknowledgement of, “Hm?”
“The next time you call my brother magical better be during your wedding vows.”
The corners of Ace’s eyes creased right away with the smile that appeared on his lips. Yulia could almost swear he was reddened by the statement, though she was more curious as to why he was shaking his head than a tease over his complexion.
“No promises,” the older chuckled, running his fingers in a familiar gesture of comfort over his beard. “I might slip a couple in before.”
The blossom of Yulia’s smile mirrored the one she’d aimed at her brother weeks ago over a restaurant table in the company of the very same man she sat with now. Even for someone as forthcoming and outspoken as her, words couldn’t do her gratefulness for him justice. And she hoped Radimir felt the same.
"Now...” Ace interrupted her thoughts as he shifted in his seat to reach into his pocket, “we have more more important business to tend to.” The get well soon gift that he withdrew brightened Yulia’s features even more than his initial entrance into her room. “Careful, careful!” he warned through his laugh as the chocolate frog box was snatched precariously from his hands. He marveled to see her glimmer in even the darkest of times and without looking up from her mission to secure her frog, Yulia made a request so simply, so sincerely that Ace never had a choice but to concede.
