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The mission was supposed to be easy. Routine even. The objective was clear, simple: pay a visit to a seemingly irrelevant orphanage in Japan, observe the ‘incredibly powerful’ ability user they were housing there and assess whether they would be of any use to Fyodor.
The outcome should have been one of two things:
- The duo would have a powerful new ally/pawn, or
- There would be one less ability user in the world
Neither of these were what happened.
The first few steps were completed flawlessly, Nikolai transported them both to the orphanage and once they arrived they were met by the director. Needless to say he did not survive the encounter.
In fact he wasn’t even able to open his mouth before he found a bullet lodged in his skull, put there by the clown who seemed to be having the time of his life.
Steps one and two were done; reach the rickety old building, and dispose of any obstacles.
It wasn’t difficult to find the entrance to the poorly concealed basement. After making their way down the stairs they were faced with a simple metal door.
Apparently they had thought that the entrance to the stairway was well hidden enough to warrant the need of such a pitiful door.
Now, the obvious solution would have been for Nikolai to just use his ability to portal them into the room, however, at this point ‘overdramatic’ was practically his middle name. As it was, Nikolai did in fact use his ability to get them into the room. Just not in the way one might assume.
Instead he reached into his cloak and pulled out a bazooka from wherever he stored his vast amount of firearms and other weapons.
Fyodor swore he once witnessed the clown bludgeon someone to death with a medieval mace.
The result of firing a bazooka at a locked door should be fairly obvious but I will explain what occurred next nonetheless.
Within seconds there was no door in sight. Not simply broken but completely destroyed save for a small pile of burning wood in what was once the doorway.
The duo heard screams coming from what appeared to be a somewhat young man, though the thick smoke made it too hard to tell.
Once the smoke had cleared considerably, Fyodor was able to see a pale, blonde haired man lying on the floor, seemingly around twenty five years of age.
Said man was bleeding rather profusely from a cut just above his eye, he had probably been standing near the door and had been struck by it.
Deeming him unimportant, Fyodor turned to view the rest of the room in search of his target and froze.
The orphanage, likely afraid of the consequences if this got out, had kept all knowledge of their misdoings relatively private. It was because of this that Fyodor had found records of what was occurring in the basement. The records however, had not contained any mention of who the ability user in question actually was.
It was for that reason that when Fyodor turned to see a child, approximately five years old and crying, the so-called ‘demon’ felt his patience evaporate.
Granted, the mission hadn’t been hard. And yes, children made good pawns as they were easier to manipulate than those with fully developed brains, but the negatives outweighed the positives due to the fact that they had to be raised first and often couldn’t be used effectively until they were older.
There was an excitable gasp behind him and Fyodor turned to see Nikolai, a hand on either of his cheeks, as he stared at the young boy.
“Oh Dos-kun! Can we keep him?” Fyodor sighed, he really needed to charge the clown for each word he spoke.
“No, Nikolai. We’re leaving, he's not worth our time.”
Nikolai fell to his knees in front of him, wringing his hands. “Please Dos-kun? Pleeeeeease?” he whined, “he’s just so utterly adorable!”
Fydor spared another glance at the child who had finally stopped crying and was now staring at them both with a slightly scared but relieved expression. He was nothing special, with silvery-white hair, not too different from Nikolai’s although a bit darker. His eyes were wide, a mixture of gold and violet.
Fyodor supposed as far as children go this one was nicer looking than others that he had seen. He sighed internally.
Not for the first time he regretted agreeing to date the dolt.
Leaving was even easier than arriving. They simply extracted the child from the vast amount of machinery and wiring and with the help of Nikolai’s ability, vanished.
They emerged from the portal in the living room of an old-fashioned wooden house. The room was mostly bare, simply sporting a brown couch that seats two, somewhat threadbare rug and a low larch-wood table.
The walls were unpainted and next to the couch stood a cello, clearly well cared for.
There were also numerous firearms scattered around the room.
The child wriggled out of Nikolai’s grip but was wary enough to not wander too far. He cautiously approached a pistol that, knowing Nikolai, was probably loaded.
Fyodor dashed forwards to grab him under the shoulders and awkwardly carry him away from the weapon.
“Kolya! You’re the one that wanted to keep it, you should be the one keeping it away from the guns.”
“Kolya!” the boy squealed, throwing his arms in the air, seemingly unbothered by the uncomfortable hold.
“Ah, yes, you’re right.” Nikolai stepped towards them and with a flourish the weapons disappeared one by one into his cape.
“Good. Now take it.” Fyodor held out the boy for the clown to take. He then moved to the couch and flopped down, watching as his boyfriend spun around the room with the newly acquired child.
Eventually Nikolai settled down on the sofa as well and booped the child’s nose, earning him a small giggle.
He dramatically clutched a hand to his chest at the cuteness.
“And what, young man, is your name?” Nikolai asked in his best Japanese.
The boy took a second to answer, likely needing some extra time to figure out the accent, before attempting to bow and laughing out “Atsushi!”
“Well Atsushi, you are now my son!”
“Wait what?” Fyodor sputtered out. It was one thing to keep a child as a pet of sorts, but an entire other to claim it as a son.
Atsushi raised his hand to point a finger at Nikolai.
“I.. am the fabulous Nikolai Gogol!” The clown proclaimed, his volume growing higher with every word.
“Kolya!”
“Yes, you adorable thing, you can call me Kolya.”
“And that grumpy man,” Nikolai leaned forward to stage-whisper that part in the ear of the happy child, “is Dos-kun!”
And though Fyodor had recovered enough to register the use of the frankly ridiculous nickname, he apparently was still in enough shock that he was unable to stop himself from saying “Fedya” under his breath.
Which of course both of the other people in the room heard.
Atsushi turned to Fyodor and pointed at him this time before shouting “Fedya!”, effectively breaking the man out of his daze. “Am I Fedya’s son too?”
“Yes!”
“No!”
Nikolai pouted. “Oh come ooon Dos-kun. We’re practically married at this point anyway, we should have a kid!”
“No. Absolutely not. We are not married. And we are certainly not becoming parents. In fact we should take this child back to where it came from, this whole thing was a mistake.”
How was this his life?
Not only had he failed to get rid of the young boy, but now had also agreed to go shopping. He had somehow been persuaded to keep the child and turn the room that had previously been used to store weapons into a bedroom for him.
They had already acquired (stole) a small bed and chest of draws but Nikolai had decided that instead of simply using his ability to get everything else, they would go on a family outing.
(“We are not a family”)
(“How could you say that, Dos-kun?”)
(“You’re ridiculous”)
(“And you’re washing up tonight”)
The two men were walking down a crowded street in Shibuya, an excitable Atsushi walking between them. He was holding Nikolai’s hand, swinging it as they walked, and trying every few seconds to grab Fyodor’s. The Russian was growing tired of constantly moving his hand away.
They were the perfect image of a family, aside from Fyodor’s reluctance and the fact that Nikolai was armed to the teeth and had narrowly avoided the police several times already that day.
(“You never know what could happen in Shibuya Dos-kun! What if we need to protect our baby?” was his reply when Fyodor had tried to get him to leave some behind.
“He’s not our baby.”)
Regardless, Fyodor had resigned himself to the fact that he would have to accompany them, if only to babysit not only the child but also the fully grown man.
Their first stop was the biggest book store that either of them had ever seen, not that they spent much time in book stores to begin with on account of spending most of their time, you know, committing crimes.
Once they reached the children’s section Atsushi raced ahead eagerly, Nikolai following closely behind.
Fyodor, though, walked off in a different direction and after a bit of searching, found what he was looking for.
The school section.
His Japanese was almost fluent, albeit with a strong accent, and Nikolai’s wasn’t too bad either, but if they were going to raise a Japanese child they would need to improve, or at least not get worse.
So he picked up two Japanese dictionaries.
He then found a Russian work book for Atsushi, after all, if he was going to live there he would need to have at least a basic understanding of the language. He had also gotten a phrase book from the travel section a few minutes prior.
Hopefully whatever picture books they chose would be enough to help him develop his native language.
After he was satisfied with materials for linguistics, he also selected a work book teaching simple addition and subtraction as well as a Japanese history book and a children’s guide to Japanese folklore.
Happy with his finds, Fyodor returned to his boyfriend and not-son to find Atsushi carefully comparing books.
He eventually seemed to settle on eight different stories. Without bothering to even look around, Nikolai grabbed a side of his cape and transported the books straight to Atsushi’s bedroom.
The child in question’s eyes widened and he gaped.
“Are you stealing those books?” he whispered.
“Why yes I am, Sushi-chan!”
“Isn’t that illegal?”
“Why yes it is! But it’s also more fun than paying for things.”
Atsushi seemed to contemplate this with all the seriousness a five year old could muster before deciding that that made sense.
“Ok!”
That next shop they went to was in a department store and contained seemingly endless rows of clothes of all styles.
Fyodor decided that he would have to take control of this task as he deemed Nikolai incapable of choosing normal clothes.
Of course since they lived in Russia Atsushi would need much warmer clothes than they would be able to find in Japan, but that could be dealt with at a later moment, right now he just had to find some outfits for wearing around the house.
In the end Fyodor selected six shirts of varying colours (white, blue, red, green, black and purple), three pairs of comfortable black trousers, two hoodies; a green one with a dinosaur on it and a blue one covered in little cartoon donuts, and eight pairs of fluffy socks.
After taking a break for lunch, in which Fyodor discovered his not-son’s love for chazuke, the trio went to find the final shop.
After taking forty minutes to find a shop that was two minutes away (Nikolai was now banned from being the map reader) they eventually arrived at a toy shop and Fyodor had resolved to find a leash for Atsushi.
The second that he saw the huge mountains of plushies and shelf after shelf of games and dolls, the child ran off to find things he wanted.
Fyodor watched in muted amusement as he watched Nikolai run off after him. Then he frowned. Since when did he like the clown’s antics?
His frown deepened when said clown shouted “Um, Dos-kun…” from the next aisle.
Stalking towards the voice, Fyodor peered around the shelves to see a concerned Nikolai standing alone with no child in sight.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know Dos-kun! I don’t know where he could have gone!”
Cursing, the Russian strode off, ducking into each aisle but to no avail. His worry deepened every time he came up empty. It was unlikely that Atsushi had been kidnapped but the possibility was always there, Fyodor knew better than anyone that criminals often hid in plain sight.
Suddenly, there was a loud shout followed by the sound of falling boxes.
Running towards the noise he spotted a teenager with an awful bowl cut and ragged clothes clutching a bag full of lemons. He was standing by what was once a tower of pokemon figurines and as Fyodor got closer he could see a hint of silvery-white hair amidst the boxes.
Before he could even register what he was doing, Fyodor lunged forwards and grabbed the boy, slamming his face into the floor.
He watched with morbid delight as blood slowly leaked onto the floor, dying it red.
Fyodor carefully picked up the sniffling Atsushi, clutching him close as the teenager struggled to his feet with a crazed look in his eyes.
The Russian reached into his pocket to retrieve the knife he made sure to carry on him at all times and held it out in front of him threateningly.
“Stay the fuck away from my son.” He all but snarled.
It was then that Nikolai appeared and landed a well aimed punch to the teenager’s face, knocking him out.
He then turned to Fyodor.
“Dos-kun! I knew you’d come around!”
“Fuck!” yelled a now laughing Atsushi as he threw his arms in the air.
That night both the rat and the clown tucked their new son into the freshly stolen bed.
As Nikolai turned the lights off Fyodor gently ruffled Atsushi’s hair.
“Goodnight Sushi-chan!”
“Night-night Kolya, night-night Fedya” he said sleepily.
On the way out Fyodor lingered in the doorway, watching as the little boy drifted off for the first night in his new home.
This certainly wasn’t what he intended to happen after visiting the orphanage. And he’d never even entertained the possibility of having a child of his own.
But maybe, just maybe… this wouldn’t be too bad.