Waste a Moment by Kings of Leon (Congrats btw!!! You deserve it! c: )
listen i’m still soooooo obsessed by the new season of stranger things so i’m gonna quickly do a stranger things-esque au
The swallowing blackness of the mind-world wraps all around Fay as he steps along the rippling water. In the distance, there’s a spark of light that quickly resolves itself into a blanket fort – into the blanket fort he had stayed in at Mila’s house.
Beka is sitting in the fort, though, his eyes downcast as he clutches the radio to his hand. A bit of his hair falls in his eyes; Fay wants to reach out and brush it back like he had once, when they had put one of Mila’s brother’s wigs on him.
“You have the eyes of a soldier,” Beka had told him then. But now it’s Beka whose eyes are like those of a soldier – haunted, quiet, sad. It’s day three-hundred and fifty-two, Beka says into the radio, and the sound seems to echo all around Fay as he kneels down in front of the image of his friend bent over the radio.
I hope you’re doing well. It’s been rough without you. Almost an entire year. Beka’s words are terse but emotional. Come back soon, if you can. Give me a sign.
And then, briefly, Beka’s eyes meet his. Fay almost forgets the other boy can’t see him and he reaches –
– only for the image to disappear beneath his very eyes, shattered into dust. Fay turns on the spot, eyes wide, heart thumping wildly in his throat.
“Beka?” he screams, to no avail. “Beka!”
Sheriff Feltsman means well, he really does, but it’s so hard to remember that when he keeps breaking her promises to Fay and lying and acting as if it’s only okay if he does these sorts of things.
Three rules to living with Sheriff Feltsman: Keep the curtains drawn. Only unlock the door for the secret knock. Don’t leave the cabin during the day.
Fay breaks them all to catch a glimpse of Beka in the real world. One broken promise for another, that’s fair, right? But Beka’s with another boy, some strange loud-mouth with a weird accent, and the jealousy festers in Fay’s heart before he can stop himself.
It doesn’t get any better later that night, though. Feltsman’s anger is like ice, cutting at the things Fay cherishes most. Grounded. That means no pirozhki and no TV. You need to learn that there are consequences for your actions.
The anger boils inside Fay, bright and powerful. Just like Papa! I hate you! Shards of glass meant to hurt – as well as the actual shards of glass when Fay screams and the cabin’s windows burst into crystalline pieces.
But where Fay’s anger runs hot, Feltsman’s drips cold and disappointed.He tells Fay to clean up his mess, and takes the pirozhki with him when he leaves in the morning.
He doesn’t come that night.
But it’s not like Fay would know, or care.
Once upon a time, he had asked Feltsman where his parents are. “Me?” he asks, when the old Sheriff reads to him a story about an orphan. Feltsman had nodded then, his eyes sad.
“Yes, you too, kid,” he says, his expression older than Fay has ever seen it in all the time they’ve been together.
The boxes under the floorboards of the cabin, however, beg to differ.
Yekaterina Pilsetskaya Missing After Inquiry into Baby Abduction Case, the headline reads. Her father, Nikolai, continues the search for her and his grandson, Yuri. The photograph in the article is a pretty blond woman, smiling.
(“Pretty,” repeats Fay thoughtfully, stroking at the picture and remembering it coming out the mouth of his friends. Mila had called him that, smiling. So did Leo, and Guang-Hong. But Beka had called him a soldier, that flush of pink high in his cheeks, and Fay’s stomach had lurched in a way it had never lurched before.)
Next to the pretty blond woman is a familiar man – Papa, Fay recalls with a shudder, and he traces his way through the file until he finds the address.
And then, with the pieces of broken glass swept into a heap on the floor, he leaves.
It doesn’t take him too long to find a ride with a friendly trucker ambling down the country highway in the gathering twilight. The sun is warm and golden, and Fay suspects it’ll be a while before it feels that comforting again.
“How long you been away from home, kid?” the trucker asks gruffly.
“Long time,” says Fay. The trucker grunts, pulling up to the mailbox at the side of the road. Plisetsky, it reads, in faded gold lettering shining in the early dusk.
“Tell your momma you’re sorry,” he says. Fay nods, pushing the truck door open.
“Thank you,” he manages. It’s a strange, slightly foreign word. Papa had never made him say it, and Feltsman had never expected it, either. But Beka had said it several times before, and the word had sounded nice coming from him.
Fay steps up onto the porch, knocking at the door. In the distance, he hears the truck roaring on down the highway, with only sky and trees for company.
Moments later, a wizened old man with a salt-and-pepper beard appears at the screen door, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“Hello,” says Fay quietly. “I am Yuri.”
