Summary:
The dead do not bury themselves. How can they? They are dead. But all the same, they are buried, and how they are buried can tell us much. How they died. Hints, perhaps, at why they died. Hints of who buried them, and why, and how.
This is a tale of the dead, of who buried them, and why. This is a tale of the twins, and all they saw perish. Of all those graves they saw filled, of all the friends and foes and family they laid to rest. Remember: The dead do not bury themselves.
A/N: This fic is also readable on my AO3, linked on my mainpage.
Chapter 1
Wanda and Pietro had grown up on the streets, but, when they could scrape together enough money, they liked to live in the cheap flats across from the remnants of the foster home they'd spent a few years in before the riots had really started. They'd been fifteen when a firebomb thrown through one of the windows had caused the place to be ruled unsafe and the children to be carted elsewhere.
Not all of those kids arrived. Wanda and Pietro decided, quickly, that such moving was not for them, and packed their few belongings into backpacks. They'd found some wrecks and ruins to spend their nights in, and when those were full they slept between the bins in the alleys. They still went to school – Wanda insisted – and they did sports to gain them access to the showers. They would arrive early every day, after scraping together enough pennies for a bun at the bakers, and spend as long as possible under the jets of hot water, to get the reek of the streets off them.
Homework was harder to do, but Wanda got a job at the café around the corner from school, and did her work in her breaks. Pietro ran deliveries for the bakers, and would occasionally snag a tough stale loaf for them, before the baker threw it out.
Everything they owned they kept in three backpacks. The blue one was Pietro's, and held their money, two photos of their parents, and his school books. The brown one was Wanda's, and held soap, scissors and hair ties in the front pocket, and her books in the main. The black one was stashed at the ruin of the church, and held blankets, their changes of clothes, and a few sets of underwear each. When they could, they would wash their clothes under the showers at school, or Wanda would pay her boss at the café to be allowed to run everything through her washing machine. In the holidays she would beg use of the woman's shower too.
They survived, most of the time. When they turned sixteen they realised the owner of the flats across from the foster home where they had lived didn't care about age, only money, and they'd taken to saving every tip and penny, and relied more on what Pietro could snag at the bakers, or steal from street stalls and school. They'd managed to pay ahead for a whole month, and it had been beautiful.
The flat was small (two bedrooms the size of closets, one bathroom half the size of them, a small room only a few yards wide that was half-kitchen, half-seating space), but it meant that Pietro could steal meat and they could cook it. They'd had to beg pans from their neighbours, but the old lady on the left and the young couple on the right were indulgent and kind, respectively, and had given them freely each time. They'd managed to pay for a second month, and a third, and then lost it for the fourth. It was summer then, though, and they'd found a hot pipe that ran beside the church and squatted there.
When they'd managed to pay for the apartment again they'd found the previous occupant had left pans, and the two vowed to stash those someplace too, along with the utensils and plates they'd left behind. Pietro got a second job at that point, and ran deliveries for the butchers too. He'd stolen a bike the month before, and could now carry both loads at high speed through the city, beating every other delivery boy. Sometimes he'd bring home meat he hadn't had to steal, if the butcher was especially pleased with his work, and they'd cook it themselves or share it with their neighbours and smile at the stability they'd managed to find.
They'd managed to pay for twelve months in a row, in the flat, when Wanda woke to the smell of smoke, the sound of alarms, and the loud crackling of fire from the floor below.
She woke, as ever, quickly. She stumbled slightly as she forced herself from bed, but she was quick to grab her jacket, slip on her shoes, and grab her bag. Every evening she and her brother packed their three bags with the essentials, and she had never been so glad of the fact before. It was the matter of moments to grab the blanket from her bed and cram it into her bag, and she crossed to the door.
Around it dark grey smoke curled, but when she pressed her hand to the door it was cool. She swung it open, grabbed the black bag from the cupboard in the kitchen, and ran to her brother's door. Smoke was coming out of this door and that terrified Wanda more than anything.
When she pushed his door open the room was full of dark smoke, curling up from between the creaking floorboards. Pietro lay curled half on his bed, and Wanda pulled his blanket off him and shoved it in his bag before shaking him.
"Pietro, Pietro, there's a fire, wake up, please, please Pietro, Pietro!"
The final shout wakes him, and, though groggy, he takes his coat, his bag, and slips on his shoes. He is coughing, his eyes watering, but he follows close behind her as they dash to the door, down the hall, and out the fire escape. At the bottom the other families are staring up at the blaze with mingled expressions of horror and fear and shock. Wanda reaches down to clasp her brother's hand.
"Pietro, who…?" she looks up at him, questioning, and Pietro shrugs.
"I don't know. Kostov? They've been having trouble with the new laws. Yasha's gang made comments about burning the other week, or—"
Pietro is cut off by Wanda's hand clenching in his.
"It was them." She is glaring at a group of men at the end of the street. They are laughing, pointing, and one of them is fidgeting over and over with a lighter, a huge, self-satisfied grin on his face. Wanda is muttering curses under her breath, in Sokovian, German, English, Russian, all the languages she's picked up from school and the streets. Pietro feels the urge to smile at a few of the epithets she creates for the arsonists, but stops himself, and instead wraps an arm around her. Almost instinctively Wanda leans into him, tears on her cheeks, anger in her eyes, and lets her brother comfort her.
Pietro watches warily as the group advances.
"Pretty fire, isn't it!" one of them calls, taunting, and Wanda's hand in his clenches tighter. Around them their neighbours look shocked, then uncomfortable, then angry. "You like it?" calls another.
The muttering among the crowd grows from concerned to angry, and Wanda's fists clench. "They did this," she murmurs to Pietro, under her breath. He nods, but neither of them moves.
"Where you gonna go?" shouts another, "You're as homeless as everyone else now!" The man spits, and it hits the fur of one of Old Masha's cats. Masha herself is nowhere to be seen. Looking around Wanda realises there are many not to be seen. Dead, she realises. Devoured by the flames. She remembers how much smoke was in Pietro's room, how sickening his coughing was, and something turns in her chest. Blood drips from her hand, where her nails have cut into her palm, and her expression changes as the full realisation of how close she came to losing her brother does something unearthly to Wanda.
"I will kill them," she says, and it sounds as vicious as a snarl. "I will kill them all."
Pietro says nothing, just rubs her shoulder slightly.
"They killed Masha, and the two boys from the ground floor, and the couple from the top floor, and the lady who would let us use her machine when ours broke and—"
Pietro says nothing, and adjusts his bag, on his shoulder. Wanda sobs, and continues listing people, "They killed them, Pietro. All of them, and not even giving them a chance to fight. I swear to G-d I will kill them all."
Pietro's hand is gentle in hers. "Alright. But only if I can help."
The change from Pietro's passivity to this makes Wanda smile, and they move to leave the crowd. Old Masha's cat winds around their ankles and Pietro picks the creature up with his free hand. They are moving towards the arsonists and Wanda's hand spasms in his.
"If you recognise them," she whispers, "You will tell me?"
Pietro's voice is barely audible but Wanda hears the words hidden in an exhaled breath, "Of course."
They make their way past the men, and on to the church. On the way Pietro passes Wanda Old Masha's cat and slips into the corner shop. He pilfers some fruit, and buys a small bottle of milk for the cat. On the way out he asks if they have any pastries going off, and is given a mostly stale pain au chocolat for his trouble. Outside he passes it to Wanda, who inhales the scent of chocolate like it is the most perfect perfume, before devouring the pastry. The cat winds around their ankles, and Pietro scoops it up after putting the milk and fruit in his bag. He nestles the fruit – two apples, one tangerine – in between his pencil case and his spare hoodie, so they don't bruise, and the twins continue on to the church.
It is a note to be made here that no one else ever used the church. It was ruined, but it was still considered consecrated ground, for all it had not been that for long years. The other people who lived on the streets had long claimed they heard odd noises from within it, but after much exploring Wanda and Pietro decided it was just the creaking door and timbers, and the howling winter wind they could hear. Wanda set up a few tricks and traps, when they had decided to claim the space, and the new noises - of clanking like chains, (from Wanda's strings of cans and washers,) and an odd scratching (from the odd mock-sandpaper) - kept people away. The twins' eerie closeness, and the odd noises from Wanda's creations, led to the street kids calling her the Church Witch.
(They didn't have a name for Pietro.)
At the church they place their blankets by the warm pipe. From the black backpack Wanda pulls one of the small dishes they'd decided to stash, and Pietro fills it with milk. Mollified, the cat that had been starting to mew settles to drink, and the twins curl alongside the pipe, their heads touching, their hands clasped. When the cat is finished it curls in the space made by their touching scalps and clasped hands, and shares warmth with them.
Notes:
This is a fairly long fic (12 chapters, an epilogue, completely done, and there's looking to be two sequels at least at present), so rather than posting this all at once, it will be staggered, posting every couple of days.
Comments and concrit are welcome, so please feel able to leave reviews! At present the fic isn't going especially fast, but it does build up fairly rapidly.