9

The next day Yao called in, taking a day off work. He couldn't bear facing anyone or anything after the night before, his whole body was rigid and his voice even trembled as he told Olga he had a fever and was staying home. She was very understanding, too understanding in fact. Yao suspected that she would rather Yao not come in that day after the scene of the party so Yao didn't feel too bad as he turned over in bed, not thinking of the cafe, or anything else beyond his bedroom door.

He did spend a few minutes worrying that he was fired. That Olga didn't actually want him to come in again... It would make sense, she should be looking for someone welcoming and friendly to work in the quaint cafe. Yao was probably now notorious for being totally unsociable.

He called her again to make sure he was working the next day. She sounded very confused as she told him yes and Yao felt stupid for ever thinking he wasn't. He hadn't done anything wrong.

After hanging up, his job secure, Yao put down his phone and slid it across the carpet out of reach. He didn't want to hear another human voice.

The rest of the day was in a strange bubble of being detached from the world. All that was on his mind while he let himself think was what had happened the night before at Ivan's. What he had discovered. What he realised that he had never actually discovered in the first place, namely, who Ivan was.

There was nothing done that long day. Yao had in fact spent most of it gazing blankly at his clothes that were strewn all over the carpet from going to bed the previous night. He rose once to eat but the departure from his duvet cocoon was extremely short lived.

It was around mid afternoon when Yao heard a knock on his door. It was Ivan. That was his knock, Yao knew immediately and it stirred a fear in him that he had spent the whole morning trying to forget. He even heard his name called in Ivan's voice. It was pleading him to come out. Yao just curled up and yelled no over and over, his body shaking like a leaf as he begged Ivan to go away, even though the other man probably couldn't hear him.

The next day was better. Better in the sense that Yao got up at one point and got dressed and left the house, he felt like it would be a little mean for him to leave Olga working alone by staying home again. So dutifully he rose in time to get himself ready for a day of baking. Yao hoped that Olga still didn't want him scaring anyone off and allow him to stay around the back all day. He was afraid to be exposed to the other people in town, he couldn't be where Ivan could see him, he could not under any circumstances let Ivan see him today.

Yao left earlier than usual, just in case Ivan tried to grab him when he left the house. He would try to get out a few minutes earlier too; he just needed to avoid Ivan.

It was a nerve racking day, Olga commented several times about how on edge he was. Yao knew where she was coming from; it was so embarrassing to yelp so loudly at every single noise. When she dropped a baking tray Yao had even fallen to his knees. Olga had forced him to sit down then and have a glass of water, she looked incredibly worried, Yao was drained of colour and his hands wouldn't still when he held the glass.

"Has someone hurt you? What happened the night before last? Yao... Has something happened? Do I need to contact someone?"

She wouldn't stop asking questions like those. Every time she put one to him Yao's lips were getting as far as telling her everything but the words stayed somewhere in his throat and were replaced by excuses of being tired. He wasn't sure if she bought into a word of it, but something just stopped Yao from talking to her. He couldn't say anything about what he found.

Thanks to his antics Yao had no trouble getting permission to leave a little earlier. He was so emotionally exhausted after such a unstable day that Yao wanted nothing more than to get under his sheets again and let his mind go blank. But he had to do something first.

Yao always thought baths were best for thinking, it was maybe the lack of distractions that got the cogs in his mind working, but right then he really didn't care how bathing helped him think, he just needed to let whatever it was do it's thing.

Yao had a lot of thinking to do.

He needed to face the dark patch on his mind which was Ivan, and what Ivan had in his basement, until now he had just made sure he didn't let his thoughts linger there for more than a moment but now... He needed to let himself go there, consider what exactly it was that he had discovered, and what it all meant.

The moment was his body was dipped into the water his memory flittered back to that night.

Did he really know Ivan at all?

That was the question that had seemed to repeat in his head as he opened that door. It had been like a jammed record, asked in the same accusing tone in his head.

Well.

Did he?

If Yao had realised one thing from this, it was that he didn't. He had been foolish, and shame on him to get ahead of himself, putting his interaction with Ivan above everyone else's view of him... Yao was new, he had Ivan had only just met, the others had known of him for years. They had been there to see things that Yao hadn't... So... Had he just been really stupid?!

The though hurt Yao in an unexpected way. He pulled his knees to his chest in the hot water. He really had fallen for Ivan. Was all that based on his stupidity?

He shut his eyes tightly. That couldn't be the case, Yao hadn't let himself be stupid, not after how Ivan approached him- j-just because he had fallen in love didn't mean that he had been blinded by it. There was sincerity to Ivan that had been enough to lure in Yao even when his claims of love had been so damn ridiculous.

Yao sighed and focused on the worst of it. There were the facts.

Ivan kept his sisters locked in his basement.

Said sisters were past insane and had gone feral.

They claimed, and Yao even believed that Ivan had been in an... Incestuous relationship with these sisters.

There was a chance Ivan did this to all his partners.

Ivan had never ever wanted Yao to discover any of this.

And then of course there was the hot stickiness of emotions that had been mixed in to such a concoction that Yao could almost feel his subconscious trying to repress.

It was the hurt, anger, fear, heartbreak and sorrow that had made things so hard.

The petite man closed his eyes and let out a breath. What did he do now? He had the facts, categorised them...

Was he still in love with Ivan?

That idea didn't strike Yao like he thought it would, rather it felt like a little switch in his brain as it popped up.

He knew it was not safe to nonchalantly go back to seeing Ivan but the way that loving Ivan again didn't repulse him like he was sure it would as a concept worried Yao a little. For all Yao knew, he was the next one to be locked down there. Or was this different because Yao wasn't one of Ivan's crazed siblings?

He sunk under the water. He honestly had no idea.

The question was more if Yao was deep enough to let himself take the risk.

Because Yao couldn't ignore how Ivan had been when they were together, so gentle and so loving. It just didn't look like an act, all of it felt so, so tender and real.

Which is why Yao way starting to feel himself look upon Ivan in a better light the more he thought about it.

He could feel himself drift back to the time they made love, back when Yao would have vehemently defended Ivan, the only reason why Yao had even allowed the intimacy was because of the trust Yao believed was between them.

He wondered if he and Ivan were to spend time together could that trust build again. No way could it be as strong, but could it be enough?

Yao hated himself a little for his indecisiveness, the rational part of him screamed for Yao to forget being close to 'The Big Man' entirely... But he had never been totally rational.

He thought of Ivan's hot breath on his neck, creaking bed springs, the sensation of getting filled in a way that had felt so wonderfully right.

Before he knew it his eyes were closed and his hand was travelling down under the water like a predator, down, over his hip bones.

He bit the inside of his cheek as he ran his index finger along his cock, which perked immediately, as if it had been ready for the contact. His lower body bloomed into warm and Yao blew air fast out of his nose.

His dick stiffened faster than he thought it would. It was really as if the need to keep touching himself had been hiding, waiting for a simple brush of the hand to take action.

This was ridiculous; he wasn't going to do this to himself, not to thoughts of Ivan.

Ivan was a psycho. Ivan was fucked up. Ivan was sick mentally and he needed help. The only reason why Yao had never been able to call him that is because it was true.

Yet, that hadn't stopped Yao being drawn to him; the same qualities that had Yao under Ivan's spell at first were still there, very much there.

Yao stood up. If he was starting to think he could get himself off to Ivan right after finding his two insane sisters, almost swimming in their own waste and blood, locked up in his basement following, or maybe even during an incestuous relationship, then the steam must have been getting to him. Either that or he was also pretty screwed up.

He let the thought of Ivan finding the situation that he saw, the horrific mess those girls were in to be sexy or erotic cross his mind to ultimately calm his libido which he had almost stupidly been a slave to.

He lay down in the nude on his lush bedding, Yao felt just as frustrated as he had before. There were so many questions that he didn't dare ask Ivan the answer too, he didn't know if he wanted to never see Ivan again or not...

He just wished he never moved here on a whim. Or at all.

He sort of wished he and Ivan had never met.

.oO0Oo.

Yao knew that it had only been a day since his last day without work, but he was so glad to have the next day as his day off.

He had actually planned to leave town. Truthfully, it had been suffocating him- everything around him seemed to press down and he needed to out.

However, when his feet took him straight past his car and down the street, he didn't find himself hesitating. He wondered where he's end up, part of him knew and part was clueless. That was the story for Yao quite a lot now. Part of him, knew, understood, had it together. Shame that the predominant part of him had no idea. He reckoned that it was times like this he had to trust the part of him that was trying walk him down past his car and away from the house, out in the open. It had him glancing around, his hands kneading together as he looked behind him to see in Ivan had seen him and decided to follow but he didn't stop.

It was strange to be surprised at the destination of his own journey.

He was standing in front of the cart (their cart) in the middle of the clearing (their clearing) and asking himself why he never expected this. It seemed like a pretty obvious place to come, the place where he met Ivan seemed appropriate when all he could think of was the other man, even if it was mostly disgust.

Yao gave a deep long sigh and let his body flop onto the snow bed that had gathered on the wood, putting his hands on his face.

His moment of peace was suddenly disturbed, "Yao. You're here."

Yao felt a gasp rip through his throat as he sat up to see Ivan standing a few meters away, looking straight at the Chinese man, his brow knitted together.

Yao put up his arms, "You stay away! Don't you dare come close to me!"

He heard crunching of snow come closer to him, "No! No!" He pleaded, but Ivan was next to him in an instant.

Yao tensed up completely when Ivan planted himself next to Yao.

"I thought I'd find you here eventually." Ivan told him, not giving much away in the way he spoke, "I've been coming here a lot. Hoping I'd meet you... I'm glad that I..."

Yao didn't look up at him. Silence reigned, neither knowing how to address the other.

The stillness came to an end when Ivan's hand carefully placed itself on Yao's. Yao yanked it away like it was burned, "Don't touch me." What had been intended as a sharp command came out weak and unsure of itself. Yao blew air out of his nose... He had to get a hold of himself.

"They're called Natalia and Katyusha." Ivan announced, without warning or context. His voice was depressed and flat as he spoke.

"What?" Yao quickly asked, but immediately wondered why he had done that. He knew what Ivan was referencing, the girls that he had seen had occupied his mind since he saw them, so much that Yao had to wonder how they had slipped long enough to allow him to be confused at Ivan's statement. He was branding the girls, making them even more devastatingly human for him.

"Those two you found, that's their names. They are my sisters." He was speaking in a way that was so level it scared Yao.

Yao shut his eyes tightly, "It doesn't matter what they're called! I know what I saw, Ivan, and I don't think your explanations can change any of it!" He paused but when there was no reply, he kept going, "I don't understand a thing! But it scares me because it's so sick! It's wrong and it's terrifying! I don't..." He trailed off, running out of steam but gave one final push, "I don't think I want to hear what you have to say..." He forced the last line.

Though it was tired, it was Yao's final statement that seemed to trigger Ivan, "No! You have to listen! I love you Yao; you're scared so you need the truth! I love you!" He insisted, "I can't let you go!"

"What if I can't handle the truth?" Yao stood and finally looked at Ivan , "What if I've had enough by being haunted by what I saw?"

Ivan put his face in his hands, "You just don't know what happened..." He sounded upset, he had expected Yao to be demanding his explanation. Yao was close to being like that, but he was also scared of what other horrors might be uncovered if he listened.

Ivan stayed like that as Yao tried to get himself to leave, it took a few seconds for Ivan to try again, "Please... I know you might think that... I know you might be thinking scary things but they aren't right."

A long pause, "Do you still love me? You still do, don't you?" Suddenly Ivan was on his feet and his huge hands, today they were ungloved, suddenly placed themselves on Yao's cheeks, Ivan's thumb caressing his cheekbone.

Yao gazed up at him, something still wanted to wrench the hands off of him, get rid of the invading touches and tell Ivan no, it was over.

Instead a soft look down was all that came, "There's something wrong with you...I'm just as afraid as everyone else is of you now."

Ivan was whispering, "Then please listen to me, ask questions, try to make yourself less afraid..."

Yao sighed, "Why should I? Why are you asking me to put my guard down for you?"

"Because I love you."

"Or you want to bring me in again, so you can trap me and put me in your basement to rot from the inside out." Yao shuddered at his own words.

Ivan sat again, "That's what I was worried you'd think. But it isn't that."

Yao bit his lip and sat down again, "Go on then."

Ivan swallowed and started,

"When I was younger, I had a family. We moved here from Moscow when I was seven, mother wanted the peace because she was ill at the time. It wasn't serious but my father loved her too much to deny her wishes of leaving the city, even if there wasn't really a reason. My parents don't really matter though, not right now, it's my sisters that I need to explain.
I had two sisters, Katyusha was twelve when we moved and Natalia was nine...We really liked it here, even if the boy that lived in the house you live in now was mean to me, we had lots of fun.
That was until I turned ten."

Any nostalgia that had been brewing up on Ivan's face dropped,

"It was Natalia who kissed me first... Properly kissing, on the lips. She told me I liked it, that she was kissing me 'like a real woman would'. I knew it was wrong, this wasn't how siblings showed love, when she kept doing it, I started to get a little afraid. She told me it was our secret, like a game that mother and father couldn't find out about... They got more aggressive; she made me touch her breasts after a few months."

Ivan swallowed and put his hand on Yao's again, Yao was too busy listening intently to notice,

"W-We were doing more than kissing soon, it was when I was only eleven and she kept on making me do things I didn't want to her and to myself... She was my sister and she still wouldn't stop! She covered it all up the time, hit me and snap excuses until I believed it was okay just until we were in the nude. She had Katyusha join in. They both told me how lucky I was, to have two beautiful woman over me, they said they were so in love with me and they were so in love and..."

Yao gripped Ivan's wrist as he looked like he might start to cry, like the little boy that would cry every night as he was racked with the wrong he felt.

But Ivan cleared his throat and pushed on,

"Together, we took each other's virginity. Natalia and Katyusha told me it was beautiful, but that was only because I wouldn't stop crying afterwards. I wanted them to go away! To stop forcing me to do such dirty things! But they just told me over and over that it was okay that we had sex, because we were all going to be together forever. It got worse from there, sometimes mother and father would be out for the day and the whole time we were alone they locked me in the bedroom with them and have me do sexual things all day."

Ivan took a deep breath in,

"But I got to go to school and I didn't have to see them there. Believe it or not Yao, I was a popular boy and there was one girl who became my best friend. She was sweet, kind and humble. I refused to take her to my house because of my sisters but she was like you... So insistent and I..."

The flatness to his voice was crumbling,

"When she invited herself in, I let her stay... We made dinner together and read in my bedroom, it was nothing, it was what friends did! B-But they saw her, when she was over they saw her and once she left they locked me in with them again and marked me all over my body... I felt so dirty with their hot lips sucking on their juvenile brother's skin but they kept repeating that my lovely friend was trying steal me away! They wouldn't stop saying that! It wasn't fair! They were trying to taint my image of her! I didn't want it! I didn't, Yao! I really didn't!"

Ivan had to take a few deep breaths to calm himself,

"... The next day at school she wasn't there. She never came back, she was found the next morning... Out of her bed... In the snow w-with 72 stab wounds in her back. She was dead... They killed my best friend. And her parents..."

That's when Ivan broke down completely, his back shook as he erupted into sobs as he was taken back to the memory, his crying was loud, with real pain, real feeling. It got Yao to break his silence and put an arm around the larger man,

"Oh, Ivan..." He whispered, it was all he could say. He suddenly felt so deeply sorry for Ivan, the prolonged emotional abuse, sexual terror with a forced awakening, the isolation he must have experienced... It wasn't something easy to imagine.

"Sorry!" Ivan choked out as he tried to go on with his story, trying to beat down the sadness, "I'm sorry!"

"Take your time," Yao murmured, "Take your time."

Ivan nodded and did as told, it was a few minutes before he straightened and spoke again, "The boy who was mean to me also was hurt by them. He had an accident and couldn't walk again. It was never an accident, it was them. They said that no one was allowed to try and hurt me. It was them who hurt me the most."

Rapidly, he was getting rid of the feeling in his voice again,

"That became life, I couldn't associate with anyone or they would be in danger. I could leave the house to go to school, straight there and straight back...
That was until I was seventeen. I don't really know what happened, but I just know what I saw. I got home to find Natalia kneeling over my parents bodies, the knife handle sticking out of my mother's chest. She babbled about them having to die, they wanted to keep us apart. They must have really just discovered what had been going on between the three of us. I still remember the blood on my shirt, my parents blood as she clutched me and cried with joy because there was nothing to keep us apart anymore. That we could just be together all the time, stay home all day long to make love.
Something clicked then Yao. Maybe it was what she told me, or it was the death of mother and father but I kicked her in the head and knocked her out cold. I found Katyusha in my bedroom, sleeping on my bed, she woke when I found her but I just did the same to her. And then I simply locked them in the basement and haven't let them out."

He gave a small laugh,

"It's been three years since then and I still keep them down there."

He turned sad again, "I buried my mother and father in a field. I took you there once. It was funny... Nothing had grown in that field before, crops, poppies, all sorts of things had been attempted to have grow in that field but nothing worked... But the summer after I put my parents to rest, sunflowers grew of their own accord. It was a miracle."

He gave a long sigh and Yao blinked a few times, story was over.

"So now you know..." Ivan seemed to be drawn back to the present, "I purchased tranquillisers and since then it's all been the same."

"I don't really know what to say..." Yao murmured. What did he take from this? How was he supposed to react?

Ivan turned his body to Yao, "Don't you see now? I did what I had to do... After my torment I couldn't take it."

Yao was silent,

"Do you hate me?" Ivan asked, his hand cupping the back of Yao's neck to put their foreheads together.

Yao shook his head gently, "I don't think I ever did."

Ivan tightened his grip ever so slightly, "Then you can love me..." He urged, "We can be together again, can't we?"

"Those sisters would be better if they were dead." Yao whispered hoarsely before pulling away quickly and clamping a hand on his mouth, "Sorry! I..."

Ivan shook his head quickly, "No! It's okay, I know I just... I don't know why keep them there." He admitted grimly.

Before Yao knew it tears had fallen down over his cheeks, and he could barely speak, "Why did things have to be like this..." He felt the first sob come out and was then pulled into Ivan's warm embrace.

"It's going to be okay..." He reassured as Yao cried in his arms, "It's going to be okay because we'll be in love again and we can be together... Then it'll be okay... You look so beautiful when you cry Yao, so beautiful... I love you so much. So much. I love you so much.