So, I started writing this quite a while ago, but could never manage to finish it. I've given it an "ending" now, but I think that hasty conclusion will pale in comparison to the main event. It's set in the second person point of view, by the way, though it's not a pairing fic at all.
When you were six, Mama died, and it was only you and Papa left alone together. He was a warm man, but he had never dealt with a child other than you. It was difficult, and it was confusing, and he swamped himself in work and in caring for you and in sadness over Mama's death, and he never replaced her, although the men in your village said that he should.
That first year after she died was spent full of tears. Papa would watch you when you went out, never more than a step behind, his arms ready to catch you when you fell and to ward off anyone or anything that came too close. When you were tired, he would carry you home, draped over his shoulder like you weighed nothing, one arm keeping you up and the other laid gently over your back, his hands warm and comforting. He would keep the fire up until he was sure you were asleep; would keep himself from mourning Mama until he was sure you were asleep.
You were never really asleep when he did these things. It somehow always managed to surprise him when your hands, so small, reached up to hold his.
When you were eight, you moved from your home into an even smaller one, much of it built by your Papa himself, all wood and old fashion. He couldn't afford to keep the two of you in the house that he and Mama had settled down in together. To make you feel better, he would tell you stories after the humble dinners you made from what he hunted, your arm pushed up against his stomach as you huddled in his armchair together.
When you were nine, he told you the story of Vasilisa the Beautiful, only after making you promise not to get scared with your palm against your heart (and your fingers crossed behind your back). The first time he tried to get through it, he stopped because you cried too much in the beginning.
It took nearly a week to convince Papa to open up his old book of tales, weathered with time, and turn to the page he had bookmarked for you. He wagged his finger before starting again—"Don't cry this time"—before setting his glasses, which always seemed too small for his head, onto the bridge of his nose and starting back from the beginning.
Papa's hand on your back as he got through the start was welcome, his thumb rubbing over your shoulder while you bit your lip and tried not to think of Mama but did so anyway, remembering the way that her hair had been so soft; the way that she had looked the day you walked into the kitchen and found her lying on the ground, her hands over her round stomach and blood on the floor. Halfway through the story, Papa just leaned down and kissed you on the top of your head, promising to read you the rest another day.
He didn't mention the teartracks on your face, or the bright red rings around your eyes, or the way you kept hiding your face in your sleeve. When he tucked you into bed, he acted like your hiccups were the most normal thing in the world.
When you were ten, Papa decided to send you to the little school in the middle of the village for the first time. He had taught you how to read long ago, and how to write, but he wanted you to go anyway. As he stood with you at the end of the road, smiling while you stared nervously at the other children walking toward the schoolhouse, he gave you one of his books—full of old faerie tales—for good luck.
In the schoolhouse, when the teacher gave the class a break, you flipped through it and found a note. "We never finished this," it said in Papa's surprisingly neat script. It was stuck between the fourth and fifth pages of Vasilisa the Beautiful, and you only had the time to read one paragraph before class resumed.
When you got home, Papa was out at work, and you read through the rest of the story. The pages of the book turned more easily than any other you had ever held; the sound as they flicked echoed through your little cabin, uninterrupted. When Papa opened the door, kicking the snow off of his boots and calling out a greeting, you swarmed him with questions about what happened to Vasilisa at the end of the story: Did she get married to the Tzar, did they have children, were they happy—
He answered everything you asked during dinner, laughter in his voice.
When you were eleven, Papa sprained his ankle just before the winter. It only took a little over a week for him to heal, but the short time spent living only on your preserved food scared you. You begged him to teach you how to hunt the way he did, and he refused, instead only teaching you how to gather and prepare food other than meat.
When you were twelve, you asked him again. It had become a constant topic between the two of you. He always refused flatly.
Despite the fact that you had been working hard, Papa denied you again, placing his hand firmly on the table and staring you down until you were silent. He ignored your sullen behavior after dinner, and lead you into a discussion about your poor marks in maths instead. When you were drifting to sleep, hunched into yourself and facing away from him, he sighed heavily.
"I love you." He blew out the light in your small room and walked to his room.
You didn't sleep that night.
When you were thirteen, he was the one to bring it up, looking from you to the forest near your cabin before telling you to change into something better for running, for getting dirty. He taught you how to use a knife first, seated on a stump near the edge of the forest, explaining the different ways to hold the tool and when you should use it. When you asked if it could be used in a fight, he just raised his eyebrows.
"Do you get into many fights?"
"Well, no—"
"Then you don't need to ask me."
After he was satisfied with your ability to handle a knife (which took days), he woke you up early one morning, looking at you seriously with his arms crossed. Papa dragged you outside, dressed in nothing but your pajamas and your boots, and unlocked the small shed near your cabin. He led you inside with his hand on your shoulder and pointed to his shotgun.
"I will teach you to use this gun," Papa said, "but I want you to remember something: Life is precious, and this gun can take a life in seconds. So when you hold this gun in your hands, you are holding something priceless. The same is true for all guns. So do not draw one without right, and do not holster it without honor."
He waited a few seconds for the message to sink in, then patted you hard on the back.
"Also, make sure to remember that I will be very angry if you do anything stupid with my gun."
That was only one of many warnings Papa gave you about guns; only one of many times he told you to respect them. His words stayed with you and fought down the urges you would sometimes get to act like a fool. You wanted him to be proud of you.
When you were fourteen, you had your first "real" kiss. It was sloppy, and rushed, and much wetter than you had expected it to be. Right after it happened, you stared at each other, your breaths forming white clouds in the cold air, and didn't have the presence of mind to run back to class until you were already a minute late.
When you got home, you couldn't decide whether you should ask Papa about love or about the war you had learned about, so you flipped a coin while his back was turned. Over the dinner table, you asked him about war and hoped your lips weren't still as swollen as they had felt after the kiss. You said you didn't see the point of it; that it was a violation of what Papa had first taught you about guns.
Papa sat there, listened to your full argument giving only a few nods to let you know to continue, then set his spoon down with a soft 'clack' into his empty bowl and rubbed his chin. "Do you know who Aristotle was?"
You shook your head, so Papa took the time to teach you just enough that you could understand where he was going with the question. When you had learned that he had been an old Greek philosopher (and, because of that, learned what a philosopher was), he ripped a piece of bread in half and gave one half to you.
"That man, Aristotle, once said, 'We make war so that we may live in peace.' If that's true, then is war still completely bad?"
Papa left you with many questions like that, never forcing you to answer one way or another; just leaving the idea in your head before laughing and shaking his head, saying that a good night's rest was more important than endless questioning in one's head. It wasn't until you were fifteen that you asked him about love, afraid that he would give you a philosophical conundrum yet again, rather than a straight answer.
Instead, he looked at you seriously and launched into a very humiliating lecture about romance, sex, and the differences (and similarities) between the two. He had you sinking into your chair after ten minutes, and wishing you could be doing maths in front of the class rather than listening to him after twenty. By the time he got to the issue of pregnancy, your face was bright red and you assured him you would never go near anyone again, regardless of their gender, because of his speech.
He eyed you seriously for a moment before shaking his head; laughing at your embarrassment. "That's how it should be."
When you were sixteen you proved yourself a liar and went out on your first date, all shyness and fumbling hands, and inexperienced kisses shared in the privacy of your date's bedroom. You had planned on keeping it a tight secret, but when you got back and Papa asked you how your study session had gone, you confessed immediately.
He just sighed and patted you on the top of your head, still so much taller than you. "I know."
You got your first real job a few days later with the village butcher. He was reluctantly impressed by the way you could handle knives, and the customers, who you had grown up around, found you charming. All you were really concerned with was helping Papa with money.
When you were seventeen you opened the door after a long day at work and saw Papa sitting at the kitchen table with a woman who looked completely out of place in your warm, welcoming cabin, every angle on her sharp; her outfit smart and immaculate despite the snowfall outside. You greeted her politely and went to your room before you could dwell on the fact that Papa had looked more serious than you had seen him look in years.
Nearly an hour later, Papa knocked on your door before letting himself in. He got straight to the point. "I was talking to her about a new job. I want to send you through college, and to do that, we need more money. I don't want you to argue with me about it."
"Papa, I don't need to go to college; I'm fine staying here—"
"No arguments."
He waited until you finished school to leave, a large bag slung over his shoulder, an even larger case in his hand, and a smile on his lips as he looked down at you. "I won't be gone forever." You didn't mind the hard press of the case against your side as you hugged him tightly, arms sinking into the fur of his coat as the whistle of the train drowned your words.
The money he transferred arrived two days before the letter he sent. It was enough to pay for everything, more than enough, but not even that could soothe your desire to see Papa again. The words of his letter wrapped around your heart, trying to imitate the feel of his arms around you, but it never was the same. You sometimes wondered if he was holding something back, but brushed away the thought each time it surfaced.
After two long years, Papa finally came to visit. His arms seemed bulkier than ever as he pulled you up into an embrace, stubble scrubbing against your skin as he told you how much he had missed you. You tried not to cry, but when he sat in the small space of your apartment, hat on his lap and body looking ready to bust apart the chair he had gently perched himself upon, you felt the tears run down your cheeks, hot and steady. His hand on your arm only made it worse.
"I missed you so, so much, Papa."
That night you made his favorite stew for dinner, and he kissed the top of your head before setting up his bed in your living room, like a bear slumbering in the mountains. His snoring and grumbling seemed louder than they ever had when you were a child, and you clutched your pillow tightly, not wanting to admit that they had changed from a comfort to an annoyance in his absence. You forced yourself to sleep.
The next morning he told you over breakfast that he had been called back much sooner than he had thought he would be, and you finally noticed the new scars that had appeared on his knuckles as he gripped his cutlery too tightly. You drove him to the airport, rambling as you struggled to pack two years' worth of living into a one hour drive.
While you helped him with his luggage (just two small bags), you finally asked if he knew when the next time he could visit would be. Told him that you hoped it could be soon. Struggled not to look down at the ground when he smiled sadly.
"I don't know. I never know. But when I can, I'll come."
You walked with him until you could go no further, security guards separating the fliers from the non-fliers, and flung your arms around him like your life depended on it. His coat now was scratchy, not the layer of pure softness he had always donned when you were growing up, and you could not recognize his cologne, but his arms were the same, shielding you from the world and lending you strength from somewhere deep inside of Papa's heart, his breath loud in your head, the rise and fall of his chest steady, slow.
"I'll see you soon. I promise." His voice was muffled, his mouth pressed against your forehead as he seemed to breathe you in.
You nodded into his chest, losing your tears in his strange coat. "Yeah… Soon."
You watched him cross into the fliers' area, knowing he would struggle to keep his promise, to keep himself from lying to you, and rubbed your red, swollen eyes.
Soon.