after much debate if i should just make this a long one shot or if i should make this a multi-chapter story, i decided to go with the chapter idea as a just in case. i'm planning this to be only only three really long chapters, this one being the shortest.
on that note this will serve as the only warning: this story contains prostitution with minors (characters being around twelve and thirteen years old), mentions of child abuse and child sexual abuse, as well as other very sensitive subject matter. if these subjects make you uncomfortable or easily trigger you, please click the back button.
inspired by a prompt over on tumblr.
"You're hurt."
"You are very good at stating the obvious." Ivan replies, lips pulled into a grim frown and Amelia scowls and automatically, he reaches up and touches the bruising eye and winces. "I hate people sometimes."
"Yeah," she mumbles. "Don't go off with that bastard again." Her voice is firm, a little louder. Ivan opens his mouth to say something but she cuts him off, quickly. "I don't care what he pays. He hurts you, and I don't like it."
"It isn't much different than home," Ivan replies, quietly. "I am used to it."
"I don't care!" She snaps, voice raising a little bit and it garners some stares from people passing by. "You could end up dead!"
Ivan's eyes widen briefly, in almost surprise, but the expression changes to that of a smile as he raises his hand and pats her on the head, hair grimy and dirty from not bathing in so long. "Oh silly Amelia, that could never happen!"
"You don't know that!" Amelia snaps, shoving his much larger hand away. "I worry about you." She sighs. "Augh, you're annoying."
"And so are you."
Amelia rolls her eyes and begins walking. "When it's daylight out, I wanna take a closer look at your eye. Did he punch you or...?"
"Slammed my face into the wall," Ivan says.
Amelia cringes. "I'm surprised you don't have a broken nose."
"I probably do. It bled like crazy when he did it!" Truth be told, Amelia's clients aren't much nicer, but they generally provide a warm bed and shower so long as their partner doesn't come home unexpectedly. The twelve year old ducks into an alleyway and the thirteen year old follows. "How did it go for you?"
Amelia shakes her head. "No luck on my end, sadly. Some cops bugged me, because they totally care about a homeless girl, right?" Ivan says nothing. "They really don't care. If we were eighteen, they would just haul us off to jail."
"What can they do since we're considered minors?" Ivan asks curiously. This topic has never come up before, though a few run in's with the police do happen, nothing is really done besides warnings. He does know that to the police, they're as good as dead.
Amelia shrugs. "Juvie, I guess. Get dragged home, or put in foster care, where we will just disappear into a system and at eighteen, no longer a burden and off to the streets. Again." They come across a familiar abandoned building, and she lifts a leg and kicks the door open. "If we had drugs, on the other hand, yeah, we'll be hauled off to jail."
"Perhaps all of that is better than this."
Amelia shrugs again. "Maybe."
The last place Amelia wants to go to is home, with an alcoholic mother who brings strange men home all the time, and sometimes, Amelia is awakened to the cruel hands of men that decide a little girl is much more prettier than a grown woman. She knows for Ivan, that could possibly be true as well. From what little he's told her, his father was definitely not a kind man. Amelia was able to figure things out from there, but despite knowing his past, she's never told him hers.
It's a secret she's certain she'll carry to her grave.
When she had first met her companion, because they're totally not friends, he had saved her from a gang of thugs who were harassing her. If he hadn't come along, she's sure she'd be a corpse somewhere in the city. They had quickly dispersed, because a bulky kid with an expression of someone who would have no problems ripping their hearts from their chests is not someone one would want to mess with.
Since then, they've sorta latched onto each other. All she knows about him is that his family-a single father and two sisters-moved from a city in Russia. He wants to go back one day, and that's all she knows about him.
She sighs, as she lays on her stomach. "The only thing I'm grateful for is the fact we live in a warm state." Ivan makes a small noise in the back of his throat. "Sure, it's suffering during the day, but at least we don't have to worry about freezing to death during the winters and the nights are nice."
As usual, Ivan doesn't say much and Amelia rolls her eyes and stares at him for a brief moment, before rolling over and facing away from him. The building they're in has been abandoned for years now, Amelia doesn't know what it was before but she guesses it was a store of sorts, judging from the lack of staircases and the small counter. It's mostly in shambles, with fallen debris and creaking pipes, holes in the wall and she can smell moth balls.
"Do you ever get scared?"
"Eh?" Amelia rolls back over and stares at him, curiously. "What's with that question? Heroes don't get scared!" It was Amelia who had suggested they turn to this life, seeing how neither can legally get a job, and it was a quick buck. She had at first thought about dealing drugs, but the chances of dying or getting addiction herself isn't something she wanted, after witnessing how quickly someone can change when high.
Despite her own home life of being sexually abused, and knowing her own discomfort with the idea, she figures that she can pick and choose who she goes with. Amelia knows it's bad on her part, but she generally chooses to go with women clients more than men, feeling safer with them as they always come off as less violent. Amelia had been proved wrong countless times, but still chooses them over any male offer.
Oh yes, she goes off with men, secretly cheating on their wives or playing out fantasies that they know they could never get away with if she weren't some nameless kid on the street. What they do is legal, but they're not, not according to the state. Sometimes, Amelia secretly wishes a cop would bust them and one of their clients but she knows that would never happen. They're just nameless kids on the street, if they went missing or died, nobody would know and the world would continue turning.
For some reason, Ivan had decided to just do whatever she said to do, without much complaint. At first, she teased him and suggested he join the Russian mafia because of where he comes from, but he didn't find that to be very funny and had ignored her for a few days until she apologized.
Ivan scowls. "You never get scared? Going off with strange men and women."
"I have nothing to fear," Amelia says, firmly. Amelia is afraid of many things, from a voice calling out to her, to every time Ivan leaves and she's left wondering if he'll come back, to the silent blackness night has to offer in small, dead towns. She prefers the city for that reason. Monsters crawl in the dark, ready, looming, waiting to grab and hurt. "Heroes never get scared!"
Ivan knows she's lying, but he doesn't say anything. The streets are not a place to show fear, it is a vulnerability.
"...Do you?" She ventures to ask.
"Nyet."
Amelia buries her face into her arms, hiding her smile.
–
"It's hoooot," Amelia whines as she sprawls out on the floor, shirt already removed and thrown aside. "I can't stand this."
"A few days ago you were claiming that being in a warmer climate was better than a colder one," Ivan says, feeling smugly satisfied with her misery, despite feeling hot himself. Unlike her, he hasn't even removed one article of clothing.
Amelia lifts a hand in the air and gives a lazy wave. "Details," she tiredly says. "anyways, I meant for the fucking winter."
"You shouldn't swear."
"Fucking bite me,"
"Hmm, is that how you like it?"
Amelia gives him in the middle finger, still not bothering to sit up and look at him. "Aren't you dying in your clothes? You're wearing a friggin' sweater in like hundred degree weather."
"I am fine," Ivan replies.
"You gotta actually be dying." Amelia says, sitting up. "Plus, you can get heat stroke."
With a little roll of his eyes, Ivan stands up and steps the few small spaces over to her and sits down again. "It would spare me from being around you."
"You love me,"
"Keep telling yourself that."
She lightly punches his arm. "Don't lie. You know you love being around me, and think I am the epitome of perfect."
"More like the epitome of annoying and obnoxious."
"Which is why you love me."
"I tolerate you, and as far I know, love and tolerating are two different things."
"Lovers tolerate each others faults and mess ups." Amelia rolls over onto her stomach and looks at him, grinning a little.
"But we are not lovers,"
"Nah, we aren't." She agrees. "That stuff is stupid. Besides, we're only kids." She draws in a deep breath. "Love doesn't even exist."
"I think it does." Ivan replies, not really looking at her now. "When mama was still around, she and father were inseparable, and would do anything for each other." He pauses, thinking. "Weren't your parents in love?"
Amelia is quiet for a moment, mulling it over. How much information can she really divulge? "I don't think so."
"Were they always fighting?"
"No." Her fingers curl a little bit. "Dad was Army. He got drafted, and mom couldn't handle a year without him. He came home, and learned very quickly that she was bad at being faithful so he filed for divorce." Amelia licks her lips. "Stuff happened, and mom didn't want him having visitation rights, and naturally, court picked her over him. Dunno where he is now. Could've been drafted again and died, or found a new family. I dunno. Bastard didn't even try that hard in court."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. How'd your mom die?"
"Breast cancer. They found it too late in the stages."
"Shit, that sucks. I'm sorry dude." Ivan doesn't say anything, and just stares ahead. Amelia can never tell what he's thinking and that is one thing that bothers her about him. She doesn't like not being able to read people. "So uh. Yucky feelings aside, what should we do today?"
"Try to get some semblance of cleanliness?"
"That doesn't involve moving and finding a generally empty gas station?" Ivan stares at her and Amelia scowls. "Fiiiine."
As they walk through the streets, Amelia bouncing and Ivan slouched, they garner a few stares with their dirty, disheveled appearance and a few disgusted looks. Amelia only glares at them in response, and she watches as a mother ushers her children out of the way, and suddenly feels very self conscious. Ivan looks like a common thug, and his black eye nor visible scars help at all against any judgments people are probably making about them, and they probably assume Amelia is the same. Plus, she's aware that they smell and their clothes are ratty and torn, and generally just gross.
They do find an empty gas station, and the bored, inattentive attendant flipping through a magazine. It's small, kind of dirty but that doesn't matter. The duo make their way to the back, and slip into their respective bathrooms.
Amelia is glad it's a one person bathroom, so there's privacy. First, she locks the door and strips herself of her clothes and turns on the faucet and dips her head underneath, and scrubs at her hair the best she can. Grime and dirt come out, but even then, she still doesn't feel clean but she doesn't have very many options. Afterwards, she grabs a bunch of paper towels and dampens them, soaping them up and scrubs at her skin until most of the dirt is off.
This is a normal thing for them, slipping into gas station bathrooms or bathrooms inside of stores to wash up. When they don't go out at night or when they do quickies instead of overnight stays, this is how they rely on getting clean. Homeless shelters don't accept minors and Amelia has trust issues with most youth centers. Adults, in her mind are not to be trusted. Even if these little details didn't exist in her world, she doesn't know where these centers are.
She doesn't know what Ivan thinks about it, outside of their conversation about it the other night. If he were to decide to leave, she wouldn't stop him but honestly, she wouldn't want him to go.
When she's done, the sink is dirty and the small garbage bin is full. Amelia exits the bathroom when she's done and dressed, she finds Ivan waiting for her and reading something on the newspaper stand. Her eyes skim over the words.
FOUR TEEN GIRLS FOUND DEAD
Of course, she thinks, looking away from the newspaper, no longer interested and glances over at the counter, the attendant still paying them no mind, she beckons for Ivan to follow her. As quietly as she can, she opens the cooler door and plucks out two water bottles and silently closes them again. Amelia peeks at the counter again, still distracted, and hands the bottles over to Ivan so he can hide them under his sweater.
Not willing to risk anything else, the pair quickly leave.
–
"That shit is going to kill you one day," Amelia remarks as Ivan lights up a cigarette, tonight, the air feels much more cooler than usual. Her stomach is cramping up, so she grimaces a little as she steps closer to the wall that Ivan is leaning against. She's certain it's from hunger since she hasn't gotten her period in months, and at first, she had panicked, thinking that she could possibly be pregnant but it had soon dawned on her that's not so much the case.
"Oh well," Ivan replies as he blows smoke in her face and she wrinkles her nose, scowling a bit. A small smile forms on Ivan's face at her expression. In a weird way, he finds it cute.
"You're a dummy," she huffs.
"I will probably die from the elements sooner than I will from smoking."
Amelia rolls her eyes. "You don't know that." She crosses her arms over her chest and peers out at the near empty road. "Where'd you even get those?"
"Swiped them off of someone,"
"When did you start smoking?" As far as she's aware, she's never actually seen him smoke before, but then again, they're not always around each other.
"Few months ago." Amelia makes an 'O' shape with her mouth. "So, why do you care if I die or not?"
Her eyes widen and her face goes red. "I-I don't! It's just," she mumbles something and tugs at a lock of her dirty, ratty blonde hair. "y'know. I dunno."
"You are a strange one."
"You're weirder."
Ivan reaches over and places his hand on her head, the extra weight causing her to slouch a little. "Well, you're very little."
Amelia pulls away and glares up at him. "You're not that much taller than me! O-only a head taller..."
Ivan giggles a little, and flicks the butt of the cigarette to the ground. "Shorty!" He repeats the word over and over while pressing down on her head, gaining a rise from the girl as she continues to snap that she's totally not short and actually average for a girl her age.
As he continues to tease her, a sleek blue car slowly rolls up and the window rolls down. Ivan stops, and stares, a frown setting in. Secretly, he hopes that the stranger calls out to him instead of Amelia, a sudden wariness setting in.
"Girly." The man calls out. "How much?"
"It depends." Amelia replies, moving away from Ivan. "Hand job is ten dollars, oral is twelve and actual sex is fifteen, and condoms are a must."
"Got a hundred."
"Overnight and within reason, whatever you want." The man beckons her closer to the car, seemingly satisfied with her answer.
As she steps towards the car, Ivan's hand shoots out and grabs at her fingers and stops her. "Don't," he whispers. "This isn't our usual spot-"
Amelia rolls her eyes. "I'll be fine, Ivan!" She gives him a reassuring smile. His grip tightens just a fraction.
"Something doesn't feel right," He mumbles, but loosens his grip. He reaches into the pocket of his pants and pulls something small and long oval shaped out, pressing it into the palm of her hand. "Use this if he tries to hurt you." With his voice low and accent becoming thicker than usual, Amelia has to strain to even make out what he's saying.
"I will," she says after a moment and smiles sweetly. "See you tomorrow!" With that, she walks away from Ivan and gets into the car.
As the man drives away with his friend in the car, Ivan makes sure to memorize the license plate. This is mostly out of habit, he tries to convince himself, the big brother instinct kicking in. After all, he has a little sister at home and was always so protective of her, and that part of him just didn't die.