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Things between Kimi and Ollie had been good. Really good. Ollie, for the first time in a long time, felt like he belonged somewhere, he felt like he had a home. He felt like he had people who loved him. Not only Kimi, but everyone on the mountain. But, mostly Kimi. Kimi was like an ocean of sunlight, lightening up his days. Ollie was grateful to be able to bask in Kimi’s warmth, to soak him in, to be able to touch him and compliment him and give him everything he could ever want. They’d been together for eight months now, it was the end of summer on the mountain, and Ollie wouldn’t trade a single second of it for the world.
Kimi was away seeing some of his extended family when it happened. Ollie had been writing furiously, desperate not to lose the sudden stroke of inspiration, when his phone began to ring. He automatically assumed that it was Kimi or someone else from the mountain, so he picked it up without taking a second glance.
“Hello?” He said into the phone, perching it between his cheek and shoulder as he continued to write.
“Oliver,” his mother’s voice said. Ollie immediately stopped typing, his fingers sitting unmoving above the keyboard as he tried to remain as silent as possible. He hadn’t heard from his mother in, god, like four years and she was the last person he’d expected to call him today. Nothing could have prepared him for this and his stomach felt sick. He remembered the last thing she’d said to him and it had been nothing kind, in fact it had been particularly cruel, before finishing with a get out of my house.
Ollie’s hands were shaking violently, his brain whirring around at five hundred miles an hour.
“Oliver, are you there?”
He took a deep breath. “Yes.”
“We need some help,” her tough voice said.
Ollie blinked. “W-what?”
“Your father and I,” she began. “We know you’ve been making plenty of money from your writing bullshit, using our last name, the name we gave you, and now we need some help.”
Ollie, inexplicably, felt the need to cower to her. He had never considered what he’d do if his parents contacted him again because he’d never thought they would. They’d made it more than clear that they never wanted to see him again. “Help? With–with what?”
“Jesus, Oliver, use your fucking brain. We need a little bit of money,” she said. Ollie flinched like he was expecting a hand to raise. “Just for the house payment.”
“I don’t–I can’t do that,” Ollie said. He told himself that he was in a whole other country, that she didn’t control him anymore, that he was his own person now. He told himself that neither her nor his father could do anything to hurt him. He was a grown adult who paid bills and wrote books and he didn’t need their approval and he didn’t owe them anything. If anything they owed him something. He was sixteen when his parents had kicked him out and he’d figured everything out on his own, he did everything on his own.
“You’ve always been goddamn useless, Oliver, you know that? We raised you and you can’t even help us out now?”
He was something to be proud of, he tried to remind himself. It fell upon deaf ears. His hands shook and he couldn’t convince himself to keep his eyes open. He felt like he was sixteen again. His heart was sinking, sinking, sinking.
Useless.
Useless.
Useless.
“I’m s–”
“Don’t give me any of that bullshit, Oliver. You’re not sorry, I know you’re not. You’re the same as you’ve always been: an ungrateful, useless little prick. Can’t give us any grandkids, can’t help us with the house payment.”
Ollie swallowed as his mother continued to berate him. Part of him felt like he deserved this. He’d had it too good for too long. With Kimi. With Lando and Oscar, with Max and Charles, George. Marco, Veronica, and Maggie. He’d forgotten what he really was, who he’d been before the mountain. He’d forgotten what he deserved.
“Okay,” Ollie relented. “Okay, just… text me how much you need and I’ll wire it.”
“Huh,” his mother said. “Maybe you are worth something.”
She hung up the phone.
Ollie sat in silence, staring unblinkingly at the fireplace. Kimi had chopped the wood for him. Fuck, he thought, maybe I am useless. Kimi cooked for him, Kimi chopped the firewood, Kimi brought him waffles from work, Kimi kissed him when he cried, Kimi supported his writing. What did Ollie do? Did he do anything? He’d been such a fool to think that he deserved Kimi, that he deserved anything good.
His phone against his face and he realized he hadn’t moved since she’d hung up the call. He grabbed it and she had texted him a simple amount. Ollie wasted no time wiring it over.
Useless.
Ollie was laying in what was practically a nest. He’d brought his blanket out to the couch, he had a mountain of water bottles sitting next to him, and an empty tupperware container of leftovers. Kimi had made him dinner before he left and packaged everything up for him to eat while Kimi was gone.
Eating it made Ollie feel particularly pathetic. His own boyfriend knew he was useless, he couldn’t even cook a few meals while he was gone. Ollie didn’t know how he’d live without Kimi and he figured Kimi would be better off without him.
It’d been two days since the phone call with his mother. He thought, anyways. He hadn’t really been keeping track. His days had passed by motionless and bleak. His brain didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop it even if he tried. He hadn’t felt like this for a long time and he’d forgotten how to cope with it. He’d forgotten what he was supposed to do when he felt like he did when he was fifteen, sixteen. His brain felt foggy, he couldn’t write anything.
Useless.
The door clicked open. Ollie’s head snapped over to see Kimi standing in the door way staring at him.
Fuck. Ollie forgot Kimi was due back today.
As Kimi stared at him, Ollie glanced around like he’d committed a crime and was now trying to hide the evidence. The room looked like a crime scene with the trash everywhere and the empty tupperware and the fire that had been long burnt out, even though it was dark. The sole lighting source was a small lamp on the table by the couch, emitting yellow light.
Ollie didn’t even want to know what he looked like. Probably a fucking mess.
“Ollie?” Kimi asked, his voice gentle. “Are you okay?”
“‘M fine,” Ollie said, his voice rough from lack of use.
Kimi kicked off his shoes before he padded closer to the couch, standing above Ollie. Ollie kept his eyes on the floor. He felt Kimi examining him like he was a patient. He could feel Kimi looking around the room, the mess Ollie had created, the somber space he’d made up to soak in his own sorrows.
“I missed you,” Kimi said. He pushed Ollie’s blanket to the side and climbed into the nest, situating himself against Ollie’s side. Their ribcages fit together like they always did, the way Ollie was used to. Kimi was warm the way he always was. Ollie didn’t melt into it how he normally would, sitting rigid like a board.
Kimi turned to look at him. “I don’t think you’re okay, tesoro.”
“I am,” Ollie insisted. A lie. “I missed you, too.”
Kimi smiled lightly. He grabbed Ollie by the jaw, turning Ollie to look at him. He inspected Ollie’s face and Ollie wished he knew what he was looking at. Suddenly, Kimi leaned in, and pressed a soft kiss to his eyelid. He pressed a kiss to the other one. He pressed kisses to Ollie’s cheeks, his nose, his jawline, before ending on his lips.
Ollie didn’t realize he was crying until he was already doing it.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” Kimi whispered into Ollie’s skin.
Ollie shook his head, his body racking with sobs. He couldn’t tell Kimi how pathetic he was, how he’d caved. He couldn’t tell Kimi how useless he really was, because Kimi already knew part of it, and he wasn’t ready for Kimi to know the whole truth yet. Kimi pulled Ollie into his chest, wrapping his arms around Ollie’s larger frame as Ollie sobbed into his shirt. Kimi whispered sweet words into Ollie’s ear, a relaxing mixture of Italian and English, rolling his R’s the specific way he knew Ollie liked.
Sometimes, when Ollie was freaking out, Kimi spoke to him in Italian, because it helped Ollie take his mind away from what he was freaking out about to instead trying to translate the Italian in his head. It was something he’d tried once when Ollie was mid-panic attack and never stopped since. Ollie’s Italian had gotten much better, but not enough to where he didn’t have to translate the words as they dripped off of Kimi’s tongue.
“Non ti preoccupare, andrà tutto bene,” Kimi whispered. Ollie’s brain ran wild for a moment trying to remember the words. Tutto bene, all fine, he knew. Don’t do something, something. Preoccupare? He felt white hot tears still streaming down his face as he tried to remember. Worry. Don’t worry, he recalled, suddenly. He pressed himself closer to Kimi as he slowly figured it out.
He didn’t feel like everything was going to be fine. He felt like it was only a matter of time until Kimi realized the truth about Ollie, until he realized that he deserved more than what Ollie could offer him. It was a nasty feeling in Ollie’s stomach, all sharp edges and darkness.
He wanted to hold Kimi close for as long as he could, because now he felt like his time was limited. One conversation with his mother and he’d been reduced down to this, a mess. This wasn’t what Kimi deserved.
“Tesoro, tesoro,” Kimi whispered in a sing-songy voice. He rubbed Ollie’s shoulder blades, slowly making his way up to his shoulders, massaging the muscles. Ollie hadn’t realized how tense he’d been until Kimi was taking him apart piece by piece. “Ti amo. Ti amo tanto, Oliver Bearman.”
Ollie flinched at his name. He swallowed thickly. Kimi grabbed him, his grip all soft and full of love, by the jaw. His fingers were warm and tender against Ollie’s hot skin. He lightly moved Ollie’s face until he was looking Kimi in the eyes. Ollie blinked away the tears clinging to his eyelashes, letting them fall down with the rest. Kimi’s brown eyes were light, soft around the edges. He looked at Ollie like he held the world in his hands.
“Please, tell me what’s wrong, orsacchiotto,” Kimi said.
Ollie steeled himself. His resolve had been getting weaker with every word Kimi had said. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t,” Kimi said. His face shifted to one of confusion. “Why would you think that?”
“I just… I think you deserve better than me.”
Kimi blinked. He licked the corner of his lip. “What? Better than you? I don’t–Ollie, tesoro, I don’t think that exists. You’re it for me. What is this about?”
Ollie’s heart beat wildly and his hands shook where they were clasped together behind Kimi’s back. Blood pumped through his veins. “But what do I even do for you? You do so much for me: you cook for me, you hug me, you chop firewood for me, you support all my writing, you let me be apart of your family. I don’t do anything. You deserve someone who can give you something in return.”
Kimi’s eyes misted over as Ollie spoke, tears filling the corners.
Ollie continued, “even now. You got home from your trip and the first thing you had to do was comfort me. Isn’t that ridiculous? I didn’t even ask how your trip went, how your family was.”
A single tear fell down Kimi’s cheek. “Oh, Oll. You have no idea, do you? You do so much for me, you have no idea. You make me smile first thing in the morning, you come visit me at work when you know I’m having a bad day, you hang out with Maggie and go to her figure skating stuff, you let me wear all your clothes whenever I want, you listen to me ramble about the books I’m reading–”
“But–”
“No, listen,” Kimi said, stern but soft. “All those things I do for you? The cooking, the chopping, having you be apart of my family? I do that because I love you. That’s how I show you how much I love you. I don’t expect you to cook in return for me or chop wood for me. I do those things because it lets me know that you’re taken care of. You take care of me in so many ways that I can’t always do in return for you, so I do it in my own way. Ollie, I wouldn’t trade you for the world. There is nothing you could say or do that would make me leave.”
Ollie buried his face into Kimi’s chest and Kimi ran his hands through Ollie’s greasy hair. Ollie felt mildly embarrassed about the hair being greasy but Kimi’s deft hands were so comforting, playing with strands, curling them around his fingers. It’d been a week since he’d gotten to touch Kimi and be touched by Kimi like this.
“I love you,” Ollie cried.
It’d been a week, and he’d spoken to his mother for the first time in years, and Ollie had missed Kimi, and he wondered how differently the conversation with his mother would have gone if Kimi had been there to hold him like this through it.
Somehow, being held by Kimi was like a healing potion. Kimi’s nimble hands were the hands of a magician.
“Do you want to tell me what this is about?” Kimi asked.
Ollie shrugged pathetically. He wanted to and he didn’t want to and he was still scared of his parents. He’d thought he’d gotten over it, but he had just let the wounds scab over without ever actually taking care of them. He’d never talked about it, not really, and now it was coming back to haunt him.
“I’ll be here to listen whenever you want to,” Kimi offered, pulling apart a tangle in Ollie’s hair.
“My mom,” Ollie gritted out, turning his head so Kimi could hear him. “She called.”
Kimi was silent for a moment, his hands pausing in Ollie’s hair. After a moment, his hand slid down to Ollie’s neck, scratching at the nape. “What did she have to say?” Kimi asked, contempt in his voice. Not at Ollie, he knew, but at Ollie’s mother.
“They needed money,” Ollie said, voice barely above a whisper. “I tried to tell her no, but… she, fuck Kimi–she just kept going. She said I’ve always been the same. Useless, ungrateful. Couldn’t give them any grandkids–I just, I didn’t know what to do. So, I gave them the money.”
“Oh, Oll,” Kimi said, his voice tender and sad.
“She–it’s like she knew exactly what to say to hurt me,” Ollie admitted quietly.
“That’s what they do,” Kimi said. “Abusive parents learn exactly how they can hurt you the best. It’s nothing you did wrong, nothing you can fix. She called you to get what she wanted and she was ready to hurt you to get it. It’s a horrible, awful thing. You didn’t deserve it, Oll.”
Nobody had ever referred to Ollie’s parents as abusive. He’d never talked to anybody in depth about anything he’d gone through as a child. An electric shock went through his body hearing the word abusive. He had never considered it to be abuse. A small part of him had thought he deserved it. Hearing Kimi say it, the god’s honest truth, shifted Ollie’s world view a little. He thought back to all the times his parents had called him names, berated him, the times he had to cower in fear in front of them. It all reframed itself to what it truly was, rather than what he’d seen it as; abuse, rather than a punishment he’d earned.
“You didn’t deserve it,” Kimi repeated.
Ollie broke.
His shoulders shook, his entire body heaving itself over. He clung onto Kimi like he was a buoy and Ollie was drowning. He grasped at his waist where he was wrapped around him, clawing into his tee-shirt. His eyes burned from the salty tears pouring out of them. He hiccupped and sobbed and shed off the heavy burdens he’d carried lonesomely for years. It wasn’t like he was magically healed, but talking about it, telling someone, being held by Kimi, it felt like he may as well have been. Kimi’s hands were, of course, the hands of a magician.
He inhaled the deep ocean-esque scent of Kimi’s cologne. His breath shook as he exhaled the warm air into Kimi’s chest. Kimi’s hands were on the back of his neck, scratching softly. If he opened his eyes, he could see the yellow tee-shirt Kimi was wearing, where the stains of his tears were. He could hear the trees rustling in the wind outside if he tried hard enough.
He was here. He’d escaped his parents. Oliver Bearman was a survivor.
“I’m proud of you,” Kimi whispered into his hair.
Ollie nodded. He couldn’t trust his voice, so he didn’t speak. The only thing he could trust at that moment was Kimi. He could feel the ridges of his ribcage. He trailed his hands up underneath his shirt, running his hands along Kimi’s smooth back and waist, letting the warmth soak into his hands. Kimi giggled lightly when Ollie ran his fingers over the ticklish part of his side.
I refuse to lose you, he thought, you are everything to me.
Kimi laid them back on the couch.. Kimi let Ollie run his hands all over his skin as he wrapped his strong legs around Ollie’s waist. They were touching from head to toe, he could feel Kimi all around him. His tears were slowing down.
He didn’t feel ashamed. How could he when Kimi held him like this, when Kimi talked to him like he was the only thing in the world?
He took a deep breath. He prepared himself to speak. “Can you tell me about your trip?”
He felt Kimi smile into his hair. They laid like that as Kimi talked and talked about his trip, keeping his voice low, only for Ollie in the darkness of their home. The house wasn’t technically theirs, Kimi still lived with his parents, but he had a key and spent enough time there that it may as well have been theirs.
Ollie listened to Kimi talk, making comments when he could, the familiar sound of his voice helping to ease Ollie’s anxious mind and slow his heart rate. Kimi’s hands slid from Ollie’s neck to his back. Every touch was so painfully tender, the two were a portrait of intimacy in a small home in the Italian alps.
Ollie still had healing to do, but with Kimi, like this, it seemed possible. Manageable. Like less of a far away concept than it had seemed two days ago when he hadn’t even considered that he’d needed or deserved healing.
When Kimi finished, Ollie, half asleep, whispered, “Ti amo.”
Kimi placed a kiss on his forehead. “Ti amo, Ollie.”
They fell asleep on the couch together, wrapped around one another. Tomorrow was another day.