Filmy eyes stared straight ahead, no longer the clear piercing blue that they once had been. Frozen chips of ice polluted -- it made him no less observant. Seeing with his other senses that were honed to a sharp point despite his age. His muscles were leaner now, less bulky beneath the thin shirt he wore. His once kingly posture slumped forward slightly, shoulders curving inward. “Who have you brought,” he asked his daughter sharply before she made any inclination that a guest had joined her for her weekly visits to ensure her father was still living. Thriving in the sunken, swampy wasteland surrounded by mosquitoes and spiders.
The Slavic tones of his voice had not faded with time away from their homeland, but he had the common decency to speak only with English here. In a land he had hated before even coming to live upon it. America. Unrefined filth, the scourge of the earth, their new home. Forced to leave for the protection of his remaining family as well as his own life, Alexei never stopped resenting those who had overthrown him. The hatred had settled into the lines of his face, turning his blonde hair stark white.
Fox floated through the small shack, her arms full of groceries to last Alexei the next couple of weeks. She didn’t bother looking over her shoulder to check if Sherlock still lingered in the doorway or if he’d followed her inside. Nor did she cast any sort of glance in the direction of her father. “A friend, Papa,” it was routine now, taking care of him. A routine she knew he did not deserve. “Be nice.” Alexei hummed a deep, disapproving noise to himself and turned his milky gaze toward the door.
“Come, come, stand in the light for me to see you, friend.”
@astudyinholmes ❤ for a not so secret papa alexei starter.
