Modern AU OLL: Setting The Stage

Setting the stage…

One of the biggest things that we have to leave behind in the 1700s… Is that someone powerful can get away with murder. At least, as easily.

So, years before the births of either of our MC's, there is a divorce.

Excerpt:

The lawyers were dumbfounded. One was sweating so hard that it looked like he had walked in from a rainstorm. Another seemed to already kissing away a fat paycheck. Hells, even Tatsiana Volchek, previously Mrs Volchek, and soon to be Kiss-Kosa, didn't seemed all that pleased.

"No, I'm serious. I fucking hate sailing, you can have it."

"But Marlen!"

"No but's. On your head be it if one of the brats fall over board." Marlen Volchek, uncle and husband and mentor, flicked the ash from his cigarette and leaned back in his chair, dragging his knuckles over his beard. He couldn't stop the smile at Tatsiana's frown at him.

Laszlo seemed blind to his girlfriend, soon to be fiance's, ire at him. While there were hearts in his eyes every second they were on Tatsiana, there would always be stars when he looked at Marlen. It irked her from the moment he was brought on into the company, and it irked her now.

"Maybe you should have married Mal." She finally said, the urge for a bottle of wine only growing.

Laszlo immediately turned in his seat, looking at her as if she had kissed the sun into existence and quickly grabbed her hand.

"Don't say that, my love!"

"Yeah. God forbid Bigamy." Marlen couldn't stop the snort. "Now, that's a stretch too far for our family."

And there it was. As per usual, in Varan, the i-word was danced around. But then again, no fault could be placed at the feet of anyone at the table. An old man, seeing his first born daughter as undesirable, and his brother as tainted. No shares, no inheritance, no nothing unless they married and produced-

"Papa?" Pavel poked his head around the door, his eyes just a bit too red from rubbing away tears. Tatsiana held back words, her father's, ones used to snap that one shouldn't ever dare to cry. When the boy charged for Marlen's lap, her stomach sank. This time would be different. Her children would see that she wasn't always a beast. Not with Laszlo. "The nanny wants to take us home."

"Already?" Marlen glanced at the time and his eye twitched. Wasted too much time already. Lawyers and Tatsiana and fighting over things that didn't matter. "Fine. I want the last discussion to be about custody. Take the other shit."

"Mr. Volchek-"

"I want full custody. Or majority. My kids stay with me."

"No deal." Tatsiana's face tightened. Not a monster. Even when Sasha had stared at her in wonder the first time Laszlo had come to dinner and made her laugh. Did she not laugh around her children? Did she ever? "I-"

"Tia." Marlen leaned across the table. "I know. You don't want to walk down the aisle before you're showing too much. You want to start again. Now, let me do the same with my children."

"They're my children too." She couldn't help that her words came out as a whisper. "You will NOT make my sister into their mother. You will not steal them from me."

Marlen frowned at her. For a moment he looked too much like her father, staring her down as she reached for another pastry at breakfast, or when she got too out of breath going up the stairs, or when she cried when he announced her engagement. But in a flash it was gone. His eyes on Pavel, who was fighting back a fresh wave of tears.

"… Majority then. Look, I won't move far away. The kids could walk from mine to yours whenever they want, for fuck's sake. I just want it on paper."

Laszlo's warm hand in hers under the table. Squeezing gently. Her own hand resting against her stomach. Stanislav for a boy. Svetlana for a girl. Marlen looking at her gently. Pavel.

"Fine." She released a long breath. "But one more thing before we stop for the day."

She steeled herself. Laszlo's breath caught, already knowing what was coming.

"I don't want Ofeliya near them."

Marlen's easy expression dropped. But instead of anger…

"… Tia." He started playing with Pavel's fingers, looking tiny in his big, rough hand. "… She is planning on coming back home."

"I don't care, she can-"

"She's coming with the kid."

Tatsiana flinched as if struck. Of course. Of fucking course.

"… I'm taking the country house and the penthouse. Then you can keep both Ofeliya and her bastard."

"Deal."

So the house split into two. With both of the heads locked in a stalemate within the company. CEO and COO, in the same positions a dead old man gifted them. The households were two very different ones, yet they never truly felt separated. No, they were irredeemably tied together.

So. To refer to what would have been the Servant MC, child of the adopted or blood sister of the Tatsiana, Ofeliya? They shall be refereed to as S. Similarly, for both adopted and blood child of Laszlo and Tatsiana, the Royal MC will be referred to as R.

So, the older is born. S was born abroad, and brought back to the Volchek household. The fact that they're older than Aksana raises eyebrows, but silence is maintained. Shortly after the divorce, Ofeliya and Marlen move in together. They don't marry, neither want that, and the living situation is chaotic as is. Marlen, a man who's life centred around business and mergers and nonchalantly squashing smaller businesses to snap up gets to come home, throw his coat somewhere and be immediately be tackled by a small hurricane of flowers and paint stains. At formal events, it must be said that they are quite the sight. A black suit, not a spot of colour on him, alongside a woman who looks like she would die if made to wear only one colour. No white or black solids in sight. He even allows her to put a flower in his lapel.

To say that make an orderly house would be a bold faced lie. Chaotic dinners, depending whose in charge. Marlen doing take out, sushi and pizza and pasta and burgers, usually ordered from his phone as he reclines in his chair, resting his head against his forearm, all the while Aksana is meticulously pressing stickers to his face.

"Isn't one of you allergic to something?" Marlen frowning at his phone and angling it away to read better.

"Not us. Stanislav is allergic to Kiwis." Pavel, busy with homework and making sure S doesn't accidentally put one of his pencil erasers into their mouth and choke to death, answers from the kitchen table.

"Huh." Marlen scrunches his nose as Aksana sticks a frowny face sticker to the tip of it. "It does give you plausible deniability-"

"Papa!"

"Just kidding, Pav. You sure have your mom's humour."

"She laughs with Laszlo." Sasha looked up from his book. "She just doesn't find you funny."

"… Don't you have a room to clean or something?"

Not that Ofeliya is better. She flits from fixation to trend to chasing a random thought. To watch Marlen's face as she rambles, you'd think he's listening to a philosopher of the ancient age, with bright eyes and parted lips. One night will be some sort of lentil soup, the next night she's insisting she can definitely make calamari from scratch, even if she was missing the squid. One time when it was Tatsiana's week with the Volchek children, all three had come with a whole roasted pork leg, a gift from Ofeliya who was seeing if she could successfully cure some ham. Which she could, but she dislikes eating pigs. So.

Of course, S, isn't included in those exchanges. Laszlo openly adores them, waves hello to them at hand offs, inquiring if they want to come visit at the weekend, since he finally can take them all to the amusement park. It's up to S if they do spend time there.

But there is something… Sacred? About the house when it's just them and their mother and Marlen. Dinners less hectic with the three siblings. They can get the adults to themself. When it's the four of them, on the weekends they eat in the side dining room, with the TV going and games on the side. It usually ends with Pavel sternly trying to make the other three finish their vegetables, as Aksana and Sasha strain to get to play. But just the three of them? S eats with them, gets to enjoy their mother at her truest. Glowing as Marlen listens, giving them a happy, soft smile whenever S speaks up.

Especially when they were younger, it was a tradition. Join Ofeliya and Marlen in whatever they were doing to entertain themself before S' bedtime, TV or a board game or just sitting around the table, music playing and enjoying easy conversation. Marlen usually saw to putting S to bed. Lazily reading from one of their books to them, until S realizes that he's gone FAR off script and looking up with a squint.

"Mal."

"Hm?"

"The three bears and Goldilocks definitely didn't go into business together and had to compete with werewolves."

"Didn't they? Sorry, kid. Started thinking about my own day." Marlen shrugs, fighting the smirk threatening to take over his bearded face.

"You didn't have to face any werewolves!"

"Didn't I?"

"… Did you?" S blinks slowly, soft and trusting.

"Well, that's on a confidential basis, squirt. You'd have to sign here." Marlen offers his palm and S immediately drags their index finger over it, as if signing their name. "Right. So, I went to get coffee and that one guy from accounting bumped into me. He hadn't shaved so I did think for a moment he had tracked me down to bite my head off."

Ofeliya takes over when she's showered and in her pyjamas. Like an exchange of the guards, Marlen gets up, stretches and grumbles about his back, as she swans in, cooing at S in their big bed and immediately swoops in to start kissing their face.

"Oh, my little sunshine. Ready to go down for the night?"

"Yes, mama."

"Oh, very good." She always aimed to kiss their forehead, both of their cherubic cheeks and then a final one right on the nose, after pretending she couldn't remember where the last one goes as S juts out their chin and angles their face up.

There are bad days of course. Days when Marlen doesn't come home. Ofeliya flitting about nervously, chewing her lip. When asked, she does usually say he's stuck in a meeting, or just had to stay overnight. Only one night did she skirt close to the truth.

"Your grandpa… Was not a nice man. And in this family, we have to be patient with people, okay? Mal will always come home. It's just tough at times."

Days where Marlen can't read to S, or stays silent at the table, or stares off into the middle distance, as if there was something hiding behind the walls of his home, ready to emerge like a horror monster. Most days Ofeliya can deal with it. Other days she struggles with it. Marlen deals with things with silence, but she was raised away from her family for the most part. She has to ask and try to soothe it better. But prying often chips an already sore spot.

But S is never the target of any of their fights. To being shut out. There will be a moment that will always remain with them. Going to sit on Marlen's knee, his hand on their back to keep them steady, only to realize he is staring at them. As if desperately searching for something.

"… You alright, kid?"

"Hmh."

"Good. You'd mention if you weren't, right?"

"Yep!"

"… Even if one of the boys said you'd have to keep a secret for them? Or one of the girls?"

S would blink. He was dancing around something.

"But if it's a secret-"

"Secrets don't mean shit if it makes you upset. You'd mention it right? If… They were upsetting you. And told you not to tell?"

S thinks back to Ofeliya's understanding gaze, Marlen's quiet power.

"Hmh. Would tell."

"Good. Alright. Now go… I don't know. Organize your sock drawer or something."

Cold, late dinner never stay that way for long. Silence is filled soon after. The house comes back alive and S cam continue to grow up in an organized madness. Now, R? R gets a different upbringing.

A crowded one.

Quickly, the amount of Kiss-Kosa children outnumber the Volchek kids. Not that that's better. Pavel, Sasha and Aksana did feel a bit split off from the main family of the Kiss-Kosa's, mostly due to being away for two weeks and coming back for a week and a half. But it worked.

Stanislav was always the one leading R everywhere, firmly, by the hand, usually to create some sort of chaos. Most times it ended up with a broken window, an angry neighbour or being marched to the store to apologise and hand over the sweets he had sneaked into your pockets. To his credit, he got away with a lot of it. It did mean that Stas had a very one sided rivalry with Pavel and Aleksandr (he didn't deem Aksana or Aleksandra threats), trying to prove that he was the superior big brother. Despite the separation between Pavel and R, he dotes on them constantly. He can't help it. The distance between him and his cousin isn't big, but it's there. He's warm and sweet, but there's a softness he shows to his half sibling that is shared with his blood siblings.

Sasha however, adores to play doll with them. The same way kids play soldiers, princesses, teddies, whatever, Sasha liked to play with R. Marlen didn't like any of his boys manhandling S or Aksana, so Sasha gets to gently grip R's hand and lead them around, usually finding something to dress them up with and sending them to wreak havoc. One memorable time was when Sasha had wanted to play Witches and went out to the garden. Cutting flowers and plants and scooping up mud and stones and whatever looked earthy enough to slap together into a mud potion in a forgotten bird bath. That earned him a grounding and got R a stern talking to about not touching Papa's garden. Aksana would always… Feel closer to her cousin. They were similar in age, them being slightly older, and while her half sibling would always get her secret sweet side, nothing could come close to a friendship.

Now… A sore spot for the Kiss-Kosa's…

The twins.

Private school for all the children. Nannies for the after school pick up, weekends when the business was eating up too much time. All except the twins. Child psychologists, therapists, and private tutors. They were schooled at home, which one specialist said would calm them. Another one disagreed, said it would just get them more comfortable in their behaviours. There was no pin pointed reason for why they were the way they were. Maybe they got jealous of the attention showered on baby R. Maybe it was during their fundamental years, when Stas had broken his arm in three places and the parents had to spend too much time away, with just nannies looking after them. Who knows. But apparently it manifested in a grudge held against the rest of the family. Acting out that left other children crying, accusations of bullying, even teachers unable to control them. Three tutors quitting before the twins decided they liked the last two they had gotten.

The twins purposely pull themselves away, happy to be with each other and block everyone else out. They tolerate times spent with their parents. Banned from Marlen and Ofeliya's house since the incident with the knife and the bathtub. Was this… Isolation doing them any good? But it did seem plain to everyone but Laszlo, that one day they will abscond and leave nothing behind. Probably live on the island of Lesbos, where Albina will work her way through most of the women and Abraim is happy to just collect sea glass and give wrong directions to tourists on purpose. Two of their favourite things.

Now, the babies. Kissy and Inga. They remain two beautiful girls. Even if one is very weird. Darling Inga.

Stage Set. Curtain Rise. Music.