Chapter Two: A Familiar Stranger
Toris stepped inside his house and shut the door behind him with a loud bang. Taking a deep breath and flooding his mind with the house's distinctive scent of mismatched air freshener and old boots, he dropped his keys into the bowl by the door and ran a hand through his hair.
"I'm home!" he called into the house, before kicking off his scuffed grey shoes into the pile of boots and trainers on the floor and walking through into the next room.
"Toris! How was work?!" he heard someone shout back, and smiled as he saw twenty-one year old, boyish faced Raivis Galante skidding unsteadily into the room, fluffy light brown hair bouncing comically, clutching a saucepan in one hand and a pepper pot in the other.
"Someone's obviously cooking for a change," Toris commented pointedly. "God help us."
Raivis rolled his eyes. "Whatever. So how was work?"
"Yeah, alright," Toris answered, grinning at him and walking over to stand next to him. He ruffled his hair. "And how was playschool?"
Raivis prodded him with the saucepan, scowling light-heartedly. "Shut up. I'm nearly as old as you."
"Oh right, only five years to go," Toris remarked, grinning mischievously. "And that's what…? More than my whole life?"
Raivis shifted awkwardly, rolling his eyes. "You did have a life before that, you know. I was there. You don't need to talk as if you're four years old. Hey, although then, that would make me about fifteen, sixteen years older than you. Cool!"
Toris rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you wish. I'm much more mature than you anyway."
"I don't know what you mean," Raivis said, a grin playing on his lips.
"Mm… " Toris let his gaze drift down to Raivis' feet. "And on a completely unrelated note, I'm loving the Sesame Street socks."
Raivis poked him again, flushing, and then turned away to walk back into the kitchen, saucepan swinging dangerously from his hand. He absent-mindedly threw the pepper pot up into the air and went to catch it again, but missed; and if Toris hadn't been right in step beside him with his hand out, waiting for that exact event to happen, it would have crashed onto the floor.
Raivis rolled his eyes and grabbed the pepper pot from Toris hand with a slight grin, heading for the kitchen. "You're welcome," Toris called after him, smiling.
"Eduard, Toris is home," Toris heard Raivis announce, and then grinned as that was followed with a:
"Yes Raivis, I do know – now for God's sake please stop swinging that saucepan around before you kill the microwave or something."
Toris walked into the kitchen to see his friend Eduard Von Bock, wearing an immaculately pressed suit and a resigned expression, attempting to wrest the pan from the grip of a very uncooperative and put-out-looking Raivis. "But I'm going to cook!" Raivis protested.
"Not if you don't want the house to be burnt to the ground within the next half-hour you're not," Eduard answered smoothly, grabbing the saucepan at last and setting it next to his laptop, dark-blond hair falling over his face. "And I'm personally quite fond of this house."
"Hi Eduard," Toris greeted, and Eduard turned to affix him with a smile.
"Hey. How was work?"
"So-so," Toris answered, shrugging. "My boss thinks I've been a little distracted recently, and he thinks that having subtly put up a picture of himself on the wall by my desk will help me focus."
Raivis smirked. "Lucky you. He looks like a troll."
"Be nice," Eduard said with a grin, poking Raivis' nose, who stuck his tongue out at him and made a face.
"But yeah, otherwise it was ok," Toris continued, blushing at his friends' blatant flirting.
Eduard looked sideways at him. "Anything else…exciting happen today?"
Toris felt himself go red as an image of Feliks' grinning face immediately popped into his mind. "N-no. Why do you ask?"
The Estonian grinned. "You look especially cheerful. Like I don't know, you met someone?"
Toris went even redder. "Shut up."
Raivis laughed. "Toris, it's obvious. Usually when you come in, you're all moody and glum because you hate your job… Today you called us as soon as you got in to say you were home, you've been all happy and smiley and you haven't complained once. So what's new? Sexy business-lady just started at the office?"
Toris spluttered. "I-"
"Sexy business-man?" Eduard prompted with a highly uncharacteristic giggle, and the two burst out laughing. Toris blushed deeper and turned away to trudge up the stairs.
"I'm leaving this house," he muttered.
When Toris finally came back downstairs, tempted by the fantastic smell emanating from the kitchen, it was to find Raivis dancing around on the tiles in his socks, waving what looked like a computer memory stick in his hand. Eduard was laughing and attempting to grab it back, but missing slightly every time as Raivis twirled out of his reach. As Toris watched, Eduard made one last frenzied grab for it, misjudged the distance, and collided with Raivis, his nose bashing the younger one's forehead. They both froze for a minute, even their laughter cutting off, blushing, staring into one another's eyes.
Toris' heart jolted and he looked away. He had known for a long time that Eduard and Raivis had been getting closer, and their flirting was obvious to everyone in a ten mile radius except themselves, but it still startled Toris whenever he saw a scene like this. As far as he knew, they had yet to make a move on one another, but it was clear to Toris that it wasn't far off. And though he was happy for them and he knew they would work well as a couple and it would be great if they did get together…well…if they did…where did that leave Toris?
Toris coughed nervously and Raivis and Eduard jumped apart, blushing furiously. Raivis fixed Toris with a sheepish expression and Eduard made another sly grab for the memory stick while he was distracted but Raivis saw him coming, grinned, and jerked it slightly out of reach.
Toris slid his hands in his pockets and walked towards them. "So, er, what's on the memory stick?"
Raivis grinned at him. "Eduard's porn."
Eduard's eyes flew open. "No!" he gasped. "I don't-!"
Raivis and Toris laughed and Eduard went even redder. "It's just some stuff for Ivan…" he murmured.
Raivis raised his eyebrows. "Wow, really? That's pretty heavy-duty, I mean, we all know how kinky Ivan is-"
Eduard smacked Raivis over the head with a large purple file he'd picked up from the desk. "It's not porn!" he yelled.
Laughing, Raivis twirled out of Eduard's reach, rubbing his head. "Rude."
Eduard scowled at him, flung the folder back on the desk and folded his arms, Raivis laughing. "I refuse to communicate further with you," Eduard muttered.
Raivis dangled the memory stick in front of his face. "No? Because if you're not going to say the magic word I won't give it back."
"You wouldn't give it back anyway…" Eduard muttered, but his eyes were following the memory stick longingly as Raivis waved it in front of his face.
"Tell me I'm beautiful and you can have it back," Raivis declared.
Eduard reddened. "I-!"
"So, er, what're you cooking, Eduard?" Toris asked quickly.
Eduard shot him a grateful glance and stepped back from the memory stick Raivis was still waving in front of his face. "Uh, just a random stew with whatever was left in the cupboards after Raivis raided them last night."
Raivis looked indignant. "Hey, I only took a packet of biscuits. And it's not like you can make dinner with Maryland chocolate chip cookies."
"You would know, you've tried," Toris said, and Raivis pouted.
"Shut up. I thought it was good."
"You thought that raw pasta was edible," Eduard chipped in.
"It is!" Raivis protested, and he went to open his mouth to say something else just as Eduard dived, wrenching the memory stick from his grasp and then stepping back and waving it in the air triumphantly.
"Haha!"
Toris shook his head, laughing. "You two are like five year olds, you realise?"
"Still older than you," Raivis pointed out, and Toris scowled at him, a grin still tugging at his lips.
"I notice you still have your sesame street socks on."
Raivis made a face back. "Sesame street rules."
It was late that night when Ivan finally returned home.
Toris was winning a game of scrabble against Raivis and Eduard, who had at first pleaded with him to play with them, but were rapidly losing interest now Toris was beating them.
Raivis was the first to hear the door bang, and he jumped up at once, eager for a distraction from the humiliation of losing the game he'd practically begged the others to play. "Hey Ivan!"
A soft "Hello," was all they heard in response, and just as Toris laid down another word, earning him fifty-three points and a dismayed scowl from Raivis' direction, the door opened and Ivan stepped in. He shrugged off his big winter coat and hooked it on one of the pegs on the wall, but still keeping his thick, omnipresent scarf on. He rubbed his hands, shivering slightly.
"S'cold out," he announced. "What're you all doing?"
Toris grinned. "Well, they are failing at Russo-Liet-Latvi-Esti-Anglo scrabble."
"Russo…what?" Ivan looked confused, folded his arms together and shivered again.
"Scrabble in Russian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, and English," Eduard answered. "Russ-Liet-Latvi-Esti-Anglo Scrabble."
"Mm, catchy," Ivan said dryly, and they all laughed.
"Raivis spent all day writing Russian letters on this pack of blank tiles he forced me to buy. So we now have double the number of tiles," Eduard informed him. "Plus five dictionaries to check the dubious words Raivis keeps coming out with."
A smile crept onto Ivan's face and he walked towards the table, looked at Raivis' tiles, and then smirked. "No, Raivis, I don't think 'furgle' is a word. In any of the languages."
Raivis scowled and covered his tiles with a hand. "Shut up. It should be."
"Furgle… sounds like a verb," Eduard mused, grinning.
"Furgle… To lose miserably at scrabble after spending half an hour pleading with everyone nearby to play with you," Toris suggested pointedly, smirking.
Raivis narrowed his eyes at him and the others laughed. "Okay, whatever, English is a stupid language anyway. We should cut it out of the game."
"But then it would just be Russo-Liet-Latvi-Esti scrabble," Eduard reminded him with a grin.
Ivan laughed. "Here's a thought, go to a shop and buy Russian scrabble."
The others moaned and he laughed again.
"Eduard, your turn," Toris said, grinning.
Silently Eduard laid down 'Videvik' and smirked. "Ha. Raivis?"
Raivis looked alarmed, glanced at his tiles, and scowled even deeper. "Scrabble is an old man's game," he muttered murderously under his breath, and Toris snorted.
Raivis glared at him, before frantically starting to rearrange his tiles. After a pause he sat back, studying them hard, and Ivan looked at them again. Raivis wrinkled up his nose for a moment, there was a pause, and then Ivan snickered.
"No, I don't think 'Purvatord' is either."
They all burst out laughing and Raivis scowled, muttering under his breath.
"Just you wait. I'm going to kick your asses at boggle."
Toris' heart kept fluttering wildly this time.
As soon as Toris stepped onto the platform the next day, shivering from the sudden chill the November morning had brought, he'd spotted Feliks leaning against the wall on the right, dressed today in a thick woollen beige jumper and a pair of tight black jeans, hands encased in bright pink mittens and phone held up to his ear, chatting animatedly as usual. Toris smiled, then suddenly stopped walking.
Feliks was on his phone. What was Toris supposed to do? Should he walk over and wave, or ignore him, or wait until they got onto the train, or hang on until Feliks got off his phone…? Toris bit his lip. He already knew from experience that Feliks' phone calls could last the whole train journey, and longer. He didn't really fancy that route...
So Toris cautiously walked over, stopped about a metre away, and leant against the wall there. Shivering from the cold, he wrapped his arm around himself and wished he'd had the forethought to steal Raivis' fluffy yellow Pac-man gloves for the day.
"No, I'm telling you, he had no idea, I mean, like, his face just stayed the same, there was just nothing, you know what it's like when- oh, goodness, hi Toris!"
Feliks broke off abruptly from his phone call as he noticed Toris. Almost a little flustered, he grinned and held up a finger as if to say 'one moment, sorry', and then rolled his eyes and pointed exasperatedly at the squealing phone, where the person on the other end seemed to be rather excitable. "Yes, yes, I know… No! Look, I'll keep you posted… No, shhh! Pffft… Okay, okay, I'll see you soon Kat. Yeah. Bye. Love you. Totally. Bye."
Feliks clicked his phone off, blushing a little, then shoved it in his pocket. "Hi! Sorry about that," he said, sending a sweet flustered grin Toris' way. Toris' heart fluttered suddenly and he blushed. "No problem. I'm the one intruding," he said quietly, looked at the ground.
"Pffft, not at all," Feliks snorted, waving a bright pink gloved hand dismissively. "So, like, how are you today?"
"Yeah, good thanks. Kind of sleepy though, my housemates kept me up till two o'clock playing five-language boggle," Toris replied, grinning.
Feliks' eyes widened. "Wow, five languages? You're like, fluent in five?"
"Uh, well, fluent in three, I just know a few bits and pieces from the other two. And it wasn't really a proper game, one of my friends created it himself. It's about twice the size, full of loads of different letters from different languages, and kind of stuck together with gaffotape," Toris answered.
Feliks laughed incredulously. "Wow. Which languages are those?"
"Uh…" Toris brushed some hair from his forehead. "English, Russian, Lithuanian, Estonian and Latvian. I live with three other guys and we all come from different countries. We all speak English as a second language though. Hence five language boggle."
"Oh! Any Polish?" Feliks asked.
Toris cocked his head to one side. "No, I don't speak any Polish at all."
"Ah, right. Shame." Feliks grinned, but there was a trace of disappointment in his eyes. "I'm Polish!"
"Oh!" Toris smiled. "I'm Lithuanian."
"I speak a bit of Lithuanian," Feliks said proudly. "Aš pradėjau mokytis jį prieš keletą metų!"
Toris gasped, then beamed. "Very good! You're going to have to teach me a bit of Polish."
Feliks visibly flinched, then caught himself and looked embarrassed. "Sorry."
Toris frowned but didn't know what to make of it. "Uh, I-"
"No, no, that's fine! Sorry, I don't know what happened. It would be, like, totally cool to teach you Polish," Feliks amended, grinning sheepishly.
Toris shook his head and laughed, a little confused. "Okay."
Feliks grinned back at him. "Right. The most important thing to learn in any language is obviously how to say-"
And at that moment his words were drowned out by a rush of air blowing onto the platform, and then the trademark rattling that signified the train was approaching. Toris grinned as both he and Feliks turned as one, without even having said a word, to head towards where the front of the train would stop.
He always got into the first carriage whenever he caught a train. He didn't know why, but he did, and lately he'd noticed that the only reason he'd seen Feliks every day must be because Feliks always took the first carriage as well.
"So, er, first carriage, right?" Toris asked.
"Always," Feliks answered, grinning, and together they hurried down to the end of the platform.
A few minutes later, when Toris and Feliks were both safely seated in the first carriage, Toris in the window seat, Feliks next to him, and the train had moved off again, on its way to London, Toris shook his hair back from his face and grinned across as Feliks, who was picking absently at a loose thread on one of his mittens.
"So what exactly do you do for a living?" he asked.
Feliks looked delighted at the question and he set his gloves down in his lap with a bright smile. "I'm an interior designer!" he said proudly. "I've only been doing it for, like, the last five years or so, but I'm doing okay at it and I've left a lot of people totally pleased."
Toris smiled. "That sounds a lot more interesting than what I do. Did you study for it?"
"Well, like, uh, I did a bit of studying in Poland before I came here - which was totally awesome by the way, I learnt so much and I got some really good contacts. But then - I mean, I guess I'd always known I'd wind up in England really - I just decided to up sticks and come here. And it's working out great so far!"
Toris laughed. "That's brilliant. Did you speak English before you came?"
"Um, well, uh…" Feliks faltered and Toris frowned slightly. Feliks sighed almost inaudibly. "I had a great friend back when I was in Russia. He, uh, he was the one who taught me Lithuanian-"
"Oh-!" Toris couldn't help himself exclaiming.
"-and the two of us were learning English together. We were like, getting quite good at it too," Feliks said, with a small smile.
Toris grinned. "That's quite helpful, I imagine, to be able to learn another language with someone else. Makes it more enjoyable I guess."
Feliks' hand curled slightly, involuntarily, from where it was sitting in his lap, a small movement, as if he hadn't meant for Toris to see it. He gave Toris a smile. "You know, that's like, exactly what he said to me."
Toris smiled back. "I, er, I had lots of people to help me learn English – I mean, when I first, uh, woke up, you know, from the coma, I… I didn't know any English at all to begin with. But I had my friends to help me. So it wasn't too bad."
Feliks looked at him. "So, er, like, what languages did you speak when you first woke up?"
Toris twisted his fingers in his lap. "Well, uh, for the first bit, nothing at all, because everything was so confusing and bright and overwhelming… But after a while we discovered I could speak Lithuanian and Russian. Ivan told me I'm Lithuanian by birth, but spent a lot of time in Russia with him and Eduard and Raivis, so I guess that's probably why," he explained.
Feliks had flinched again while Toris was saying this, and Toris was starting to find the Pole's rapidly oscillating, twisting and turning emotions a little confusing. He cocked his head to one side and Feliks looked guilty.
"I'm sorry, this is just, uh, like, bringing back a few memories. I, uh, I spent a lot of time in Russia also," Feliks said slowly. "This, uh, this best friend of mine, he lived there as well. We were, uh, great friends. But, um, well, stuff happened. You know. As it does."
Toris swallowed. "I, uh, I can stop talking about this if you want, I mean, there's lots of stuff we could talk about instead, like, uh, well, I'm an accountant and-"
"No, no!" Feliks interrupted quickly, bringing a finger up as if to place it on Toris' lips to shush him, but then going bright red and snatching his finger away. He coughed nervously. "Uh, totally sorry about that…"
Toris looked at him for a minute and then burst out laughing. "Goodness, Feliks, it's fine. Relax!"
And though he had no idea why, the words seemed to work and Feliks sighed and settled back further into the train's plush seat.
That smell! There is was again! At Feliks' sudden movement, a wildly familiar scent washed over Toris, bringing back such a painful jolt of nostalgia he had to grab onto the arm of the chair to stop himself falling forward. Feliks looked concerned and shifted around to face him.
"Are-are you alright Toris?"
Toris caught himself. "Uh, yeah, sure. Sorry. It's just…you smell like, uh…"
Like memories.
Feliks raised an eyebrow.
"Uh… Nice. You smell nice," Toris finished lamely, and Feliks laughed.
"Okay, uh thanks!"
There was a pause while Feliks just grinned mischievously at him, as if holding back a laugh, and then as he raised an eyebrow, Toris burst out laughing.
"Oh, sorry, I, oh," he muttered, but was laughing as he said it, and soon Feliks was in hysterics too.
A man in front of them turned around to look disapprovingly through the gap between the seats at them, but Toris found he couldn't stop laughing and the action seemed to be just about as effective on Feliks.
At long last when the laughter had started to fade, Toris breathed out slowly and smiled gently at Feliks, who returned it easily. Toris' heart leaped suddenly in his chest but he didn't push away the feeling this time.
After a moment of just simply looking at each other, Toris looked away with a smile, and stared out of the window, where the countryside was rushing by in a blur.
Feliks' hand was resting over the minute gap between their seats, but it was as if it were much closer. Toris could feel the heat emanating from Feliks' pale skin as if it were burning into him, leaving him warm and just ever so slightly breathless.
They didn't say anything else, but they didn't need to.
Toris smiled. This time he was really starting to feel like he knew Feliks. And the more he did, he more he liked him.
When Toris finally resurfaced from absently watching the world rushing by the window, he realised that they seemed to be nearing the station. His heart sank imperceptibly.
"We're nearly at Euston," he commented, looking back at Feliks, who smiled at him.
"Oh, ok! But I'll see you on the train home though, won't I?" Feliks said, grinning and making Toris' heart jump again in the way he was slowly getting accustomed to.
"I er...I'd like that," Toris said breathlessly.
Feliks smiled warmly. "Well, Liet, this has been a totally awesome train journey!" he announced.
Toris frowned. "Huh? Liet?"
Feliks froze.
"Uh, I'm sorry, I, uh…" he said frantically.
Toris raised his eyebrows. "Are you ok?"
Feliks took a breath. "Yeah, sorry. It was, uh...like, um, Liet was my nickname for the name of the guy who, who taught me Lithuanian... You, uh, you remind me a little of him..."
Toris laughed and Feliks seemed to relax slightly. After a moment when he had said nothing more, Toris shook his hair back from his face. "And, uh did he have a nickname for you?"
Feliks looked up, and his eyes met Toris', startling him a little. There was a pause and then Feliks said quietly "No. He never… He never came up with one."
The sudden sadness in his eyes shocked Toris for a moment and he shifted slightly in his chair, all too aware in the abrupt silence of how close they were sitting to one another and how the train kept subtly jogging them so that Feliks' hair kept brushing Toris' face and how if Feliks moved his arm just half an inch closer it would be resting on Toris' leg and-
"But anyway," Feliks laughed, straightening up and brushing off the sad expression as if it was a cobweb. "This is the present, and I quite like the present, because you're in it, and I, ooh, look, we're at the station," he said brightly, leaning across Toris to peer out of the window.
Thoughts spinning, Toris took a breath and instead nearly inhaled some of Feliks' hair, as the Pole leant across his lap to look out of the window.
Feliks' hair was a soft honey yellow sort of colour, blonde but not overly so. And it smelt wonderful. Toris could identify some sort of fruity shampoo, but also a faint tinge of something almost a little chemically, sweet, but slightly metallic, a bit like, almost like...
Feliks leant back into his own seat and Toris sat up straight, abruptly, feeling sheepish.
Feliks grinned at him. "You alright?"
"Yeah, fine," Toris said quickly, and Feliks giggled.
"You are funny. Right. So, er, I guess I'll see you on the train home then?"
"Yes," Toris said instantly. He blushed. "I mean, if you're okay with-"
"Of course!" Feliks beamed widely, then as the train finally crawled to a stop and he stood, swinging his bag onto his shoulder, he smiled gently down at Toris, who was struggling to get up and lift his own bag with only one arm. Feliks held out a hand, which Toris took gratefully, and pulled him to his feet.
"I'm glad to have met you, Toris," Feliks said softly, and Toris had to let go of his hand and abruptly become very interested in the strap of his bag to conceal how red his face had suddenly gone.
Feliks laughed and as he started getting pulled away, towards the doors and off the train by the flow of people moving onto Euston Station, Toris finished fiddling with his bag and followed after him quickly.
And the last Toris saw of him that morning was as he turned to see Feliks walking away down the platform, when the Pole unexpectedly turned around and blew him a kiss.
And Toris' legs suddenly turned to jelly and he wound up having to apologise profusely to a poor woman for five minutes after having collided with her as he quickly stumbled forward to go on his way, face bright red, lips bent in a sheepish grin, and heart fluttering wildly.
A.N
Happy update, sweeties!
I'm sorry it's taken time! I've been extremely hectic of late and with so many stories on the go I'm sure you can imagine... Plus I have a birthday fic to writing! Gah! But I finally got out chapter 2 of This Time. I'm really starting to get into this story :D I love it so much.
Okay, you all know by now that the song fitted to this fic is 'Alive' by Gabrielle Aplin. It's amazing :3 so go look it up if you haven't already!
Um, I'm not sure really what to say! Uh, thanks everyone for being patient with me, and for all the love :D reviews from the last chapter were simply fabulous, darlings, don't ever stop being wonderful :)
Also, someone let me know if you would be interested in getting my tumblr :D I'm just wondering!
My life hasn't changed a lot... I'm back at school for my last year of secondary before I move on to Sixth Form, I'm still just as fandom-obsessed as ever! I can't wait for Catching Fire to come out (Hunger Games fangirl right here), I'm also excited for Halloween (I'm so sad) and I'm even looking forward to Christmas already! Good god!
To my followers, the next thing I am going to put online is 'To Build A Heart' (SuFin). It's possibly my favourite fic of this AU and it's very feelsy but also (in my opinion) kind of moving and thought-provoking too!
Right! 'Videvik' is Estonian for 'Twilight', and 'Aš pradėjau mokytis jį prieš keletą metų' is Lithuanian for 'I started learning it several years ago'. I apologise profusely of ether of these are wrong - google translate is not exactly blindly reliable!
Anyway, I love you all as usual, reviews would be amazing, and I hope you enjoyed!
Keep dreaming!
Charli xxx
