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When Mikhail couldn’t sleep, he’d usually end up hanging out in his older brother’s room.
It had become an unspoken routine. When insomnia had taken them over for the night, or nightmares had made it far too difficult to bear sitting in the dark, one would text the other, and they’d find some way to pass the time. As they waited for either one to fall asleep or for the sun to come up (whichever came first), they’d entertain themselves with video games, movies, books… and occasionally, conversation.
“Your hair’s gotten pretty long.”
Misha looked up from his notebook. “Has it?” He ran a hand through his hair, squinting at the digital clock beside Vanitas’ bed reading 5:17 AM. “I didn’t really notice.”
“You didn’t? When you get haircuts, I usually don’t even realize you needed one in the first place.” Vanitas scooched closer on the bed, peering down at the problems in Misha’s notes.
“I guess I’ve just been too caught up thinking about exams. I’m good at my other subjects, but math doesn’t come as naturally to me as it does for you, so—”
“You’ve made a mistake in 3.b. I think you got a couple numbers mixed up.”
Wrinkling his nose, Misha picked up his calculator. He seemed so pouty that Vanitas had to hold back a laugh.
“You’ll be fine so long as I’m tutoring you, right?” Vanitas rested his cheek on his hand, propped up with his elbow, watching Misha work with a cross expression on his face. “You must be more stressed about exams than you’re letting on, then. I haven’t seen your hair this long since we were younger.”
Although it wasn’t quite a mention of Moreau or the events surrounding him, the times their history naturally ended up in conversation still brought a dull ache to their stomachs. A quiet recognition of that reality in their lives. It was a simple way to work around talking about what they went through; to put all specifics aside and assume the other automatically understood those words better left unsaid. The closest they usually got to saying Moreau’s name would be left to either the cryptic “he” or the more straightforward “asshole”.
After a few seconds of near-silence and pen scratches, Misha filled it with a snort. “Well, back then my hair was still a lot longer than it is right now. My mom wouldn’t have ever let me cut it this short.”
“It’s still long, ” Vanitas mumbled. He sat up properly again, looking down at the problems Misha had solved. “Why was she like that, by the way? Did she want to treat you like a doll, or something?”
Misha stopped writing.
“You don’t need to answer that, though, if you don’t want to,” Vanitas quickly added.
Misha shook his head, going back to writing. “No, no, I think that might’ve been part of it. She definitely had some sort of obsession with treating me like a doll. It was more based on wanting to keep me looking pretty for others, though.”
“She thought you looking nice would make her look like a better mother, then?”
“No, she wanted me to look good for her clients.”
“Huh? Why’d she want you to look good for them?”
Wincing, Misha’s face began to redden. He’d been so focused on his math he’d said too much without meaning to. “She… sometimes, she’d get me dressed up so I would be pretty enough that her clients would pay for me, too. She’d have me turn tricks for them every now and then. She figured she could get them to pay more for me than for her.”
He embarrassedly glanced up at Vanitas, who was staring at him in horror. Just as Vanitas had processed what he’d been told and opened his mouth to speak, Misha rushed to interrupt him. “It’s fine, though, I hardly remember it, so it doesn’t bother me. I don’t ever even think about it, honestly.”
Vanitas studied his expression, shock still evident on his face. “It… seriously doesn’t bother you?”
“No, I only remember bits and pieces of it all, and I didn’t understand what they were having me do back then, so I’ve never really cared.”
“Why?”
“Wh— y— huh?” Misha sputtered. He almost thought he’d misheard him. “Why what?”
Vanitas answered carefully, keeping his eyes focused on him. “Why doesn’t it bother you?”
Coming from anyone else, it would’ve been an insulting question. If anyone but Vanitas had asked him such a thing, he would’ve asked them what kind of question they think they’re asking. He would’ve told them to mind their business. He would’ve felt annoyed, maybe upset, and definitely wouldn’t ever continue to waste his time on someone asking him why his really fucked up childhood didn’t bother him.
Coming from his older brother, the question almost felt like a confrontation.
It felt like Vanitas had challenged him for an answer, knowing exactly what that answer would be. He knew the chances of that not disturbing him at the very least were as likely as either of them not being unnerved from all they suffered at the hands of Moreau.
He’d just made another attempt at dismissing his own pain, pain he so often ignored, and Vanitas had seen right through him. And suddenly, Misha was hit with the realization of how vulnerable that genuine understanding made him feel.
He tried to force a smile. He tried to respond with a joke to deflect from this bizarre situation he found himself in. Instead, all that came out was a choked stutter, confronted with the reality of the question.
The emotion hit him before he had the chance to mask it. The tears began before he had the chance to stop them.
Surprisingly, his first instinct was to wipe them away, like he could pretend he hadn’t started crying in the first place. But every time he wiped his eyes on his sleeve, they just kept coming.
All he could do was cry out in frustration, slamming his fist down onto his notebook. “DAMMIT!” he shouted. “So what if it does?!” He covered his face with his hands. Maybe this way, Vanitas wouldn’t have to see him cry. Maybe Vanitas would forget he’s here. He could disappear, and it’d be like none of this ever happened in this first place.
A pair of hands pulled him into a warm, tight embrace. Misha kept his eyes shut. He grasped onto Vanitas in desperation, trembling body wracked with sobs that felt like they would shatter his ribs.
Unable to hold back any longer, he pressed his face into Vanitas’ shoulder to muffle his wails.
Of course it bothered him. It wasn’t so harrowing a thought when he was younger, back when he didn’t understand. He didn’t know what the grownups were asking him to do.
But the older Misha got, the horror began to dawn. The grim understanding finally and fully sank in, and he’d never even considered acknowledging those shadows lurking in his past once it did.
They told him it was a game.
They told him it was fun.
And he still trusted their judgement when he realized it wasn’t fun at all and realized he was afraid.
She had been his mom. She was the one person he was supposed to feel like he could trust, and she'd put him directly in danger without a second thought, all because it was most convenient for her. Through how she'd hit him and yell at him, how she'd allowed these monsters to hurt a child, putting a price on his body and safety, she'd taken his childhood away from him before he'd even ended up with Moreau. He'd had his childhood ripped from his hands before he was old enough to recognize the impact of what they'd done. These were all things he already knew, but to step back and say what happened to him was wrong was another story. The knowledge he didn't even remember most of the vile things they'd done to him scared him more than he felt it should.
Even now, with the truth out and on his lips for the first time in his life, Misha had no intention of being honest with himself. There was little he could bring himself to say.
“It’s not fair,” he cried out, only distantly feeling Vanitas soothingly rubbing his back. “I was just a kid!”
The words in his mind would still be left unspoken. Vanitas wasn’t sure he could ever get him to be honest to the point of saying them. “I’m so sorry, Meesh,” he whispered. For now, this could be the closest he’d get to hearing Misha say it.
It hurts.