Getting to Know You (Ilya)

[dolemeck]

Dolemeck had just met Ilya, and they bonded quite quickly. The two just seemed to work well with one and other. Each complimenting the other, and making up for the other's faults when it came to their powers and control. It was strangely natural, and appeared to make Dolemeck less anxious, and Ilya more calm.

Today, Dolemeck asked Ilya to join him on a picnic. He wanted to talk more with him, hold hands, and just spend some time with him. A picnic was a good way to do that, and the two cold share more about their lives privately.

Using his powers, he set up a checked print cloth on the grass of the mansion grounds. He had picked a spot in which they could see the lake, and yet have some privacy. He managed to get out of his chair and sit on the cloth. the picnic basket by this side. This was going to be a wonderful day.

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[kid_from_chukotka]

Ilya had very little concept of what a picnic was, but at least the weather had cooperated with them. The lake wasn't like the ocean back home was, yet the play of light off the water was familiar enough to raise his spirits somehow as he sat down. Even if the idea was very much a new one, this was nice, a private little get away for just the two of them.

"Hey," he said softly, not sure if they were at the stage where he could call him terms of endearment like 'zvezda moya' regularly yet.

[dolemeck]

"Hi." Dolemeck felt a bit nervous. He had butterflies in his stomach as he looked up at Ilya. The other student made him smile, in a way that could look silly or goofy to some. He offered Ilya a sandwich he made. "I made what Americans call a "BLT". IT is a sandwich with bacon, lettuce, and tomato. I hear they are quite good."

He gave a small laugh, taking out some milk cartons for them to drink, and some blueberry yogurt cups for desert. He was thoughtful, even remembering Ilya's favorite fruit.

"So... umm... " Now the butterflies returned. "The other day, you said you wished to know everything about me. What would you like to know, Ilya?"

[kid_from_chukotka]

"Thanks for putting all this together. Like I said before, I'll have to figure out how to make you some Russian food sometime," he said gratefully as he took the sandwich from Dolemeck, their fingers brushing as they did so. It stirred butterflies in his own stomach, but he couldn't help smiling anyway.

"I don't know. I guess... well, things that are important to you, and I want to know about your family, and what things make you happy, for a start." He took a bite out of the sandwich and understood instantly the American obsession with bacon, making another embarrassing 'mmm' noise just like last time. "Sorry. I don't mean to do that, it just happens sometimes."

[dolemeck]

He laughed. he thought it was so cute how Ilya made sounds of enjoyment when he tried new foods. He shook his head before speaking.

"It is quite alright! It just makes me happy you enjoy my cooking!" He smiled, taking a bite out of his own sandwich before going to answer those questions he was asked.

"Well, I am the youngest in my family. My eldest brother is nineteen years older than I am, and my middle brother is seven years older." He took a brief sip of his milk before continuing. "My Da is the lead singer of a rock band that travels all over Europe called "The Dead Nights". My Mum manages his band, so... I do not see them often, if at all."

"Me brother Dayton, the eldest, took over raising Charles and myself by the time I was five and he was twelve. He was busy trying to become a crown prosecutor, but always found time to come to my school plays or when I competed in horseback ridding. Charles, me middle brother... never wanted to be around. He left home by sixteen and was busy building his own rock band."

He sipped more milk, feeling a bit nervous about talking about his family. He loved them, but his absentee parents and one bitter brother often brought back hurt.

"My Da and Mum are both heavy drug users and alcoholics. They got caught up in that "Rock and Roll" lifestyle, and never stopped. Not for me or me brothers. Dayton, was like both parents rolled up into one. And that made me feel bad. He should have never been forced to take up a role so young."

[kid_from_chukotka]

Ilya is fascinated by the information he's being given, partially because it's so different from anything he's ever known but mostly because it pertains to Dolemeck, and he's not sure how to feel about what he hears. There were alcoholics in Ayon, to be sure, but the nature of living on an Arctic island meant that the parents and extended family were still there. The loneliness of not having them hit Ilya hard when SHIELD explained to him what had happened - and he grew up with them. To know they were alive and just not choosing to be involved seemed worse.

He reached over and took Dolemeck's free hand, squeezing it gently. "Your brother Charles sounds like a great guy. Don't feel bad for things that are out of your control. It's not like anyone chooses who their family is."

Not sure of what else to say, he takes a sip of his own milk, still contemplative. One thing was certain: he would never leave Dolemeck like that, for anything.

[dolemeck]

He held on to Ilya's hand. It was so comforting and warm.

"You mean Dayton. Charles is the one in the band." he chuckled softly. "Aye, Dayton is an amazing man. He studied so hard to get to where he is, today. and yet, he never stopped caring for me brother and I to further his goals. Because of him, I have a love of books, know how important education is, and developed compassion for others."

"As for what is important to me? My friends and family are very important to me. Along with my education." His fingers moved over Ilya's. "As for what makes me happy? Well, sewing clothes and making things for loved ones makes me happy."

[kid_from_chukotka]

"It's hard to keep siblings straight in my head. My parents had wanted more kids after me but seeing the reaction that most people had to me... well, that put a stop to that. I guess my love of reading really comes from my grandparents, since they helped teach me what they could when my parents were exhausted from working or gone for a few days." It's hard to talk about his own family; he'd much rather hear more about Dolemeck's, but he's not sure it's a good idea to press for any excess details on a subject that clearly has a lot of depth to it. Maybe it's best to let him come forward with details on his own and not push him.

"You can sew? My grandmother tried to teach me, but, um. It didn't work out." His cheeks go red at the memory of managing to sew his own pant legs together while wearing them, and he looks down to their hands instead. "You're a generous person, you know. I don't think I've ever met someone who wasn't related to me who treated me so well, like I really matter."

[dolemeck]

"Because I was left unable to walk unaided, I was not allowed to take gym at school. So, I was sent to the all girl's school while my own had gym, to take home economics classes. I discovered that I liked to sew and cook, and that I was pretty good at it."

When Ilya complimented him on his kindness and generosity, Dolemeck's smile grew a bit more. It only faded slightly when Ilya mentioned that he never met someone who was not related to him, that thought he mattered. He dragged himself over, and gave Ilya a hug.

"You matter to me, just as you matter to everyone else at this school." He spoke in a soft, gentle tone. "All life matters, Ilya. You matter, and you should not forget that, ever."

[kid_from_chukotka]

"All those girls got to meet you and none of them made a move?" he's a little incredulous, here. Then he's being hugged, and his immediate instinct was to hug back and hold on, smiling at the warmth he felt that had nothing to do with body heat and everything to do with Dolemeck's words. Can they stay like this forever? He doesn't want to pull away, and he might be clinging a little too hard, for reasons even he doesn't understand.

"Sometimes I'm not sure I should be here. Not just at school, I mean alive, at all - I'm not suicidal or anything, I. It's." Deep, slow breath. He can do this. "My family is gone. Everyone is dead except me now and I don't know what to do with myself. I'm lost. The Institute is just my attempt at finding some kind of purpose now." He knows that must sound bad, so he adds, quietly, "And then I met you. And you make things sound possible that I don't usually let myself think are. You're good for me. But I'm not sure I've done anything good for you, yet."

[dolemeck]

"No... leg braces are a bit of a turn off." Dolemeck grinned when he was asked about the girls at that school. "I'd even get questions like "does it still work" and such."

He took the time to listen to everything Ilya told him. his hands gently rubbed his arms and back as they hugged, trying to keep him calm.

"I am sorry you lost your family. No one should go through that, Ilya." He continued to open his heart to him, knowing it was something Ilya needed. No. It was something they both needed. "I know it is not much, and it may not make you feel completely better... but this school can be your new family. That is what this place is to me. It is perhaps the most stable place I have ever been."

He had a few tears in his own eyes. Ilya was so pained. While not the same as his own pain, it had a familiar feel to it.

"You have done wonderful things for me, already. I can talk to you, like really talk to you. I do not have to hide my pain, and you do not treat me like I am different or awkward." He went back to smiling. "You give me hope, for so many things, and you make my heart flutter. I never felt that before."

[kid_from_chukotka]

He can't help but blush at the 'does it still work' mention. Great, now he's going to think about Dolemeck naked and he's not sure his healing factor can keep up with that level of blushing, embarrassment and utter flailing.

Ilya's arms shift so he can bury his head more comfortably into the crook of Dolemeck's neck. He feels so safe like this, so warm. It's been so long since anyone did anything but tell him to move on. SHIELD never had much sympathy; they always acted as if they were ready for him to snap. This is what's been missing from his life, this kind of love, this type of moment.

"I know this place is wonderful. I already feel better having you. I just - I want my family back. I don't know what the future will be for me anymore. I used to think that I'd go back to Ayon Island and live there, but there isn't anything or anyone there for me now. The polar station's closed and so many people have left the island that my old town isn't even inhabited anymore. And then I feel guilty for complaining about any of that when I'm here and everything is so good and I have you, and you mean so much to me. I don't understand why I can't just be happy with all the good things in my life."

Oh, wow, that was a lot of emotional gibberish. Did he really just spew all that out? Did any of it make sense? He wasn't even sure why he let himself say it, just that he felt like he could, like Dolemeck equaled safety.

"You are different. You're special to me. I've never connected to anyone like this." It's a little scary, but it feels too right to pull away from.

[dolemeck]

"There is nothing wrong with those feelings, Ilya." He hurt that Ilya was so confused and in such pain, emotionally. "I still long for my parents, and my home back in England. But I know those are things I can never have. My brother tells me it is too dangerous to live back home, and my parents..."

It hurt. It hurt to admit that they chose drugs, alcohol, groupies, and fame over him. He used to admire his father so much, until he saw what a terrible man he could be. Did he ever know him, or had he only known his addiction?

"Maybe... after we graduate, we can go see Ayon together?" he asked, his hand now gently running through Ilya's hair. "Would that make you happy, even if it was just us there?"

[kid_from_chukotka]

"Why is it too dangerous to live back home for you? You're perfectly capable of taking care of yourself from what I can see." He pressed a soft kiss to Dolemeck's neck, trying to comfort him even as he himself was being comforted. "I don't know if it would help go to Ayon. My hometown, Elvuney, is just houses and snow now. Everyone who stayed moved into the town of Ayon proper, and my mother's home island, Ryyanranot, is under 'government protection' now. No one can go there, not even the Chukchis who used to live there and who gave it its' name." With a self-deprecating laugh, he adds, "It'll be a long time before someone like me graduates anyway, Dolemeck."

On the Way Back to the Mansion

[dolemeck]

They spent the entire day talking, until the sun began to set, and the stars started to peek out from the reddish, orange sky. Dolemeck had exhausted himself, never having spent so much time with one person, or talking about such important issues. He learned so much from Ilya, and Ilya learned so much from him.

He had used his powers to pack up the picnic basket and rest it on his lap in his wheelchair, and for the first time ever, he allowed someone to wheel him back home. That someone was Ilya of course. They were smiling in ways he doubted anyone had ever seen before. There was so much love coming off of them, and in such a small amount of time.

"So, that Raven your mother gave you is a guardian of sorts in your culture? Something to look after you?" He asked. He learned of the importance of the bird when he had asked Ilya, and it made him want to ask their headmistress to try and get it back as quickly as possible.

[kid_from_chukotka]

Ilya had to admit that he had utterly lost track of the time. That had never happened to him before. It was just so easy to get wrapped up in Dolemeck and finally relax after all this time that he didn't remember to check the time. Somehow despite all his normal issues with talking to someone, he found it so easy to talk to Dolemeck it was like they'd known each other all their lives.

Maybe that was why Dolemeck trusted him to push his wheelchair. It was humbling, in a way, and at the same time extremely endearing. He tried not to blush too much.

He tries to collect his thoughts and explain things in a way that makes sense in English. Having to do a Chukchi to Russian to English translation of concepts can make for some very odd sounding conversations. "It's complicated. People are born on days that certain spirits rule over, and they have a bit of that spirit in them, pushing them to have a little of the same personality - both the faults and the good qualities. Being born under one of Raven's days is rare. He's the most important of the spirits along with Auk'knyuga, and the more powerful a spirit is, the less connected they are directly with humans. In a way. I - I am not equipped to explain this without thinking about it first.

Most Chukchi parents give their children something to remember the spirit they were born under. In my case, I was the first person born under a Raven day in my community for over a decade. My pendant was an heirloom from another family. It was precious, not just because of the metalwork, but because it was a reminder of where I was from and who I was born under, and what power I supposedly had inside from Raven. I don't know if I actually have those good traits, but it was the only piece of home and my tribe that stayed with me through the darkness and the ice. Sometimes I would lay awake at night and hold onto it and feel like there was a presence nearby watching me. Not really guarding me, just observing, encouraging me to press on.

...I know all of that sounds crazy. I get that a lot. Which might be why SHIELD took it from me."

[dolemeck]

"I see nothing crazy about it." he admitted. "It is a part of who you are, and as I said earlier... I want you to get that back. It is all you have left of your Mother, and of the memories of her. Well, not just her, but your whole family and culture."

Dolemeck showed nothing but respect for Ilya and his heritage. He was quite open to learning Everything Ilya told him, and never told him once it was silly or stupid. Because it was not. It had a beauty to it, and Dolemeck had honestly hoped that getting Ilya to open up more about his heritage, he would be less nervous in speaking about it.

"Is it possible that SHIELD took it because it was contaminated by whatever was on the train with you? Perhaps they were going to clean it up before you got it back?" He pondered. It made no sense to him. Why would SHIELD take something of religious value from Ilya? That was just cruel! "Either way, we need to speak with Headmistress Ramsey and see if she can do anything."

A smile soon graced his face, as he turned his head to look up at Ilya.

"You said you wished me to teach you to sew, Aye? Perhaps... we can work on a memory quilt together? It is some traction that early American Settlers started. Each month or year, they would sew a patch to make a quilt... and each patch had a picture of something that stood out at the time it was made."

[kid_from_chukotka]

"I'm not sure what it could be contaminated with. But then again, I don't know what else was on the train being transported to Moscow along with me. It might've picked up some radiation from working in the uranium mines but I'd think that after fifty-nine years, that would've faded from it. I know they gave the Headmistress my full file, though, and I'm pretty sure there's something on there they're not telling me. So maybe she knows."

Dolemeck is, through no fault of his own, a modern person, a British one and a white person, and therefore can never truly understand the heaviness of being mixed race in Russia in the 1940's-1950's. It was a different era with a vastly different culture and white people who had no interest in the Chukchi outside of what profit could be made from their hunting grounds. People who even stopped to talk about anything Chukchi without the intent to convert them were an oddity. Things have changed even in Russia since Ilya was there, but for him the memories are recent, their ramifications still felt in full and the walls still high and strong between himself and the rest of the world. He'd seen the looks on SHIELD Agents faces, like he was a backwards barbarian, the way they glanced at each other when they thought he wasn't looking with barely concealed laughter. It had been humiliating and the worst part was waking up, reaching towards his neck for his oldest source of comfort, and grasping only at empty space. A lot of tears had been shed at night. Sometimes, they still were.

"I guess I could work on a memory quilt. With you there to help me I wouldn't make any mistakes so bad they'd ruin it, so... I'd just need to figure out what to put on it." A bunch of hearts would be... less than subtle. "What were you thinking we could do for this month?"

[dolemeck]

"Well, we could sew a mansion and have a Raven flying over head it, and a wheelchair in front of the mansion." It might be too intricate for Ilya, but he could help when he needed it. "It would symbolize your arrival to the mansion and meeting me."

No, he could never understand what it was like for Ilya. He was pure white, despite being a mix of British and Scottish. He could easily gain more privileges than Ilya. But he was also a mutant, and gay. Those itself would bring about discrimination that Ilya had not faced, yet. While his mixed race status could easily be looked past in modern day society... everything else would be like an old wound reopening, and then starting to fester.

The Xavier Mansion was a little slice of heaven in a cruel world outside of it's gates.

"Unless we sew in a dragon instead of a wheelchair. Dragons are cooler looking..."

[kid_from_chukotka]

"No dragons. That'd be too complicated. Besides, the guy I love owns a wheelchair, not a dragon," Ilya says, pausing in his pushing the chair to lean down and kiss the top of Dolemeck's head.

On some level he knows that the true trials and tribulations have yet to come, but Ilya can't see that far into the future. He can't picture the future past the next few days, not anymore when this sense of uncertainty has been forced into him by how his life fell apart completely twice before out of the blue. It's dangerous thinking, to plan for a future he doesn't know for sure he'll have.

He'll settle for each day with Dolemeck, each little moment, and that'll be enough. "I don't want to put any of my old memories on there. So no rivers, mines or trains. Just new memories, and the important things and people in them."

[dolemeck]

"Alright. No dragons..." he gave a cute pout. "The point of the memory quilt is for new memories to be remembered. Meaning when something happens that is special to us, we make a patch for it. So no rivers, trains, or mines. Just... current events we both wish to always remember."

Dolemeck went back to smiling.

"I wonder how big of a quilt we can make here at this school. Perhaps enough to cover a Queen Sized bed, perhaps?"

[kid_from_chukotka]

"Dolemeck. You're talking to me, remember? I don't know what the difference in bed sizes is. Given how cold it was back home, if a blanket or quilt was big it would just be folded up so it could provide double the warmth." He's learned to prioritize some information. Modern politics and getting his education up to modern levels are important, for instance. Bed sizes are not.

"Where will we get the fabric for this idea anyway?"

[dolemeck]

"I have a lot of fabric in my room, and if I need more... I can just order it." He smiled, then allowed it to fade when he forgot that Ilya did not know bed sizes. "What we sleep on at the mansion is considered a "full size" bed. A "Queen size" bed can fit two people comfortably on it, and a "King sized bed" can probably fit four... though I have no clue why anyone would own a bed so big!"

[kid_from_chukotka]

"Do I get a say in fabrics? I'm kind of curious on how much variety there is nowadays." He pondered over the question of the giant bed and after a moment, concluded, "Giant beds give people an excuse to make bigger quilts. Or at least, that's the best reason I can figure out."

[dolemeck]

"No one makes their own clothes or quilts anymore. Most clothing, bedding, quilts, well... most of anything is now massed produced. There is no real heart in it, anymore." He hated to be the one to tell Ilya that. "I try and make my own when I can. And aye, you can have a say in the fabrics we used. Maybe we can go off campus one day to the fabric store! I can show you around, as there are now so many varieties."

He smiled at the thought, realizing that Ilya had never been shopping before.

"It will be fun! The fabric store has such wonderful people running it!"

[kid_from_chukotka]

"Only you could make shopping sound fun," he says fondly. The truth is, shopping is a bit of an overwhelming idea. SHIELD had been intimidating enough and there weren't nearly as many people on a SHIELD base as there were in a standard city or town. But who knows? He didn't have Dolemeck then, and SHIELD's staff were always watching anyone who wasn't SHIELD like hawks. "But I'm curious enough that I'd kinda like to go. You'd have to lead the way, though. I have no sense of direction - in cities. In the wilderness I'm fine. Comes with living where I did with a mother who hated being in the house as much as mine did, I guess."