harrietwritesstuff

[harrietwritesstuff]

ask game for teasing wips/upcoming projects

Send an emoji and I'll answer!

🌀Post the fic summary for a fic you haven't written/published yet. It can be hypothetical or something you really plan on releasing... ❄️Share a snippet from a WIP of your choosing. 🌤️Share your favorite piece of dialogue from your WIP. 🌧️Share something angsty from your WIP. 🌈 Share something soft/fluffy from your WIP. 💧Share something romantic/hot from your WIP, or just something sweet if it's gen. 🌩️ Share something funny/cracky from your WIP. ☔Is there a fic concept you have that you'd like to just explain and share because you're not sure you'll ever write it? If so, what is it? 🌪️Sum up a WIP with a few fic tropes/Ao3 tags.

[harrietwritesstuff]

mary oliver poetry prompts part i

send a line of poetry + a character or ship and I’ll write a short fic inspired by it!

You do not have to be good.

Death and death, messy death — death as history, death as a habit —

It wasn’t my language, but I understood enough.

We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed.

Everything wrong, and nowhere to go.

But if I sing, I sing from her.

In my happiness, in my soft body.

There are so many stories more beautiful than answers.

I died, and was born in the spring; I found you, and loved you, again.

Well, who doesn’t want the sun after the long winter?

How many kinds of love might there be in the world, and how many formations might they make?

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?

You don’t want to hear the story of my life, and anyway, I don’t want to tell it.

I want to think again of dangerous and noble things.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention.

And what does this have to do with love, except everything?

It is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world.

To love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.

Listen — are you breathing just a little, and calling it life?

I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I’ll take it. 

You want to cry aloud for your mistakes. But to tell the truth the world doesn’t need anymore of that sound. 

I tell you this to break your heart, by which I mean only that it break open and never close again to the rest of the world. 

I wanted to be able to love. And we all know how that one goes, don’t we? 

Maybe death isn’t darkness, after all, but so much light wrapping itself around us — 

Mostly, I want to be kind. 

A love to which there is no reply. 

And now you’ll be telling stories of my coming back; and they won’t be false, and they won’t be true, but they’ll be real. 

As though I were his perfect moon. 

Tell me you love me, he says. Tell me again. Could there be a sweeter arrangement? Over and over he gets to ask it. I get to tell.

[part ii]

[harrietwritesstuff]

anyone else ever re-read their old stuff and wonder what happened lol bc I'm there rn

[harrietwritesstuff]

Reaaaal subtle there, Vova~ 😏😘

#TheGaze™️

[harrietwritesstuff]

✨️ WIP Wednesday ✨️

suddenly, Emmanuel finds himself cradling the leader of the free world against his chest, entirely  aware wholeheartedly of the feeling, the press of a body against his - loose limbed, heavy. Vova leans into him, no longer supporting his own weight, head resting against Emmanuel's shoulder, his eyes almost-closed. 

“Sorry Maks-”

The Ukrainian syllables stick in his throat as he realizes dully that the arms around him are not those of his bodyguard. His head throbs persistently, just out of time with his fluttering heart. Eventually, after an interminable stretch of time, he realises what is different to all the times before.

"‘mmanuel-” 

[harrietwritesstuff]

For the prompt fills, Volena and 119?

119. from the location prompts was an ambulance bay. Here's 1.5k words of angst, mostly with a Volena slant but I went a little off piste. Enjoy.

It has become too much all of a sudden, the painfully claustrophobic quiet of the corridor as they wait, staring at any doctor who rushes by them; wondering when there will be news. Andriy’s foot taps incessantly on the scrubbed flooring, Maksym bites down on the inside of his cheek until he can taste blood, every nerve in him strung too tightly. Eventually, Olena lets out a small wail of despair, hurtling from her seat, half-running down the corridor; everything in her desperate to escape this nightmare - this horrible sensation of being in limbo; of never knowing, of not knowing if her world will be wrenched out of orbit.

The doors swing shut behind her and Maksym watches her leave, his tall frame hunched into a small plastic chair, his thumbnail chewed raw. He glances at Andriy.

“Go after her-”

“But what if-”

Maksym’s face is drained of all colour.

“Just go,Yermak. You being here or not being here won’t do anything now. She needs someone-”

“But-”

Maksym’s face softens slightly.

“You can help Volodymyr by being there for Olena. If anything- if he-” he stops suddenly, his jaw working. “When he’s-” he takes a deep, steadying breath. “Someone will come fetch her-”

Eventually, Andriy finds her outside, leaning against the wall of the ambulance bay - her gaze on nothing in particular, apparently unmoved by the hectic movement and constant noise, sirens intermittently piercing the air, the concrete bathed in blue light before it stutters and fades. 

“Lena?”

She looks up, startled at being addressed so familiarly, gently - the last few hours have been a blur of precise, oddly unfeeling instructions; stay here, wait, don't touch him. The smudges of mascara below her eyes have become streaks, grey against the blotchy pallor of her face. She sniffs.

“Why-” her lip trembles, fiddling with something in her hand as she tries to regain the steadiness in her voice. 

“Why would- someone do this-”

Andriy wishes he knew what to say or do - but he doesn't; not this time. There is no comfort he can give her that would alleviate any of this. He shakes his head. In his heart - he knows one of the reasons why; that they want to destabilise the country and one of the ways to do that? Cut off the head. His stomach clenches and bile rises in his throat. He knows they've tried before, he's read the files; but never - they've never gotten this close - the sick, sullen feeling of dread is replaced by a flash of anger so blindingly bright that he reaches out a hand to steady himself against the wall. If Maksym doesn't find them, whoever it was in the crowd with a bullet and a gun, Andriy will. 

Behind his eyelids, all he can see is Vova's face, the dawning expression of surprise in the middle of the square. The noise of two sharp gunshots and then the confusion, his hands clasped against his abdomen, knees buckling, the force of the second shot sending him reeling backward. His stomach flips, his heart unsteady again as he recalls how the surprise on Vova's face had slipped, replaced by a too-serene calmness - at odds with all the chaos surrounding him, his body somehow smaller; the life inside him flickering out of view over the horizon. He is smaller still then now, vanishingly so; his features slack in unconsciousness, half hidden somewhere beyond the doors to an operating theatre, shifting, fading into shadows as they stand out here and wait for news.

His gaze is caught briefly by a flash of metal. Olena notices the way his face shifts, a veneer of normality pulled down over the rising rage, the yawning agony.

“His wedding ring-” She palms it, offers it out, hand trembling. Andriy has never seen Volodymyr without it. He fiddles with it sometimes in meetings, twirling it around his finger as he thinks or when something stops him in his tracks - some news or a new development. He always reaches for it, as though to ground himself and now without it, he is unmoored.

“He couldn't– had to take it- the surgeon said-” her voice is hardly a whisper, the sentence unfinished as her fingers close over the metal, holding on until her knuckles are white, her hand clenched into a fist. Andriy feels his chest ache.

“He'll be-” 

She nods before he's really said anything; anticipating an ordinary platitude. He’ll be fine, he’ll be out of the woods before we know it, he’ll be with us again soon. There is something in her face, her eyes red and dull- as though she doesn't believe him - whatever he'd say regardless, she has somewhere within herself become resigned to the loss of her husband - if not now, then one day. Andriy remains silent, unsure what to say, how to help - he is so used to her quiet strength, more delicate than that of Vova, but still there - a constant among the tumult they exist within. Now, that same strength feels fragile, something easily shattered and it scares him. They stand in silence, the two of them aware of just how much everything has shifted; the fate of a nation hanging in the balance - their nation, Vova’s most beloved Ukraine.

Olena shivers, and out of habit, Andriy sheds his sweatshirt and drapes it over her shoulders. Absently, she pulls it closer. The silence stretches out between them again, broken by the chatter of the ambulance bay; the noise of the hospital. Eventually, she speaks again - soft, quiet. She doesn’t look at Andriy, instead focused on the ring in the palm of her hand, turning it over and over.

“We- we argued.”

Her words are toneless.

“Before he left. I told him not to go. Begged him but he was too stubborn-” A laugh - more of a quiet sob. “I said it was a stupid idea- that one day it could– it could get–”

A cry breaks through and she fights to drag it back, to finish her thought because she needs to get it out of her, the rising panic in her chest, it needs to go somewhere otherwise she will be overwhelmed by it.

“I said it could get him killed and I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it if that is the last thing he hears me say, Andriy. It was cruel and thoughtless and–” 

The rest of her words are lost in a storm of grief, a howl torn from her, as Andriy gently folds her into his chest, rubbing her back. He will not tell her everything will be fine, it feels useless, trite. Instead, he quietly holds her as she sobs - her very heart fractured into pieces under the weight of it all - the weight, the precious gift of loving Volodymyr so very much that sometimes, like today, it hurts to breathe.

Her next confession is small, full of anguish.

“I love him. More than my own life. I don’t- I don’t want him to go-”

It feels like hours later when she is finally ushered in by a doctor; leaving Maks and Andriy still outside in the corridor. The doctor’s voice fades into the background as he talks about prognosis, recovery - any number of things, but all Olena can do is search Vova’s face for some flicker of recognition, of life - of something, anything - but she finds nothing, her heart sinking. Just an eerie blankness; his eyes are closed, the dark circles below them smudged, pitiless. His thin face is pale, lips chapped and bloodless. He seems small, nearly lost amongst the maze of wires and tubes, his bruised chest criss-crossed with gauze and dressings, some of them bloody. Her stomach clenches. She steps forward, takes her husband’s limp, bandaged hand, the one unencumbered by an IV line, and presses it gently against her cheek.

The scent of him is still there, beneath the sharp tang of antiseptic, a quiet warmth that she cradles as delicately as she can, her own hands still trembling, tears filling her eyes. The low, tentative sound of Vova’s breathing is the only precious thing beneath the insistent heart monitor, the hiss of oxygen through the cannula in his nose and the soft click of the syringe driver delivering morphine, all of it underscored by the grim determination to hold on - the teetering, yawning void between one breath and the next.

“Come back– come back to me.”

The frail hand resting against her cheek moves a fraction - his fingertips twitching as the readings on the heart monitor change, the oximeter spikes, his eyelids flickering and suddenly her heart is somewhere in her throat, her tears transformed from sorrow to joy. She clutches his hand tighter, waiting, hoping–

The movement is over as suddenly as it began, and he is still again. Olena lowers his hand back to the blankets, but still does not let go. She stands at his bedside until there is a dull ache in her legs that shifts to her lower back, her eyes gritty, unable to look away from the slow rise and fall of his chest, uncaring for her own grey fatigue, the edges of the room beginning to blur. 

Sometime in the night, she sinks down into a chair, one hand still in his, the other clutching his wedding ring like a talisman, her thumb rubbing the metal until it shines.

[harrietwritesstuff]

@my-whortleberry-friend @the-jam-to-the-unicorn I hope you both know it makes my day each and every time 🥹💕

The biggest compliment ever is when someone sees your creative work and says that they’re now inspired to go out and create something, too

[harrietwritesstuff]

Tender Actions for Characters Who Are Yearning (But Not Together… Yet)

(I crave you in silence, and if you notice, I’ll die and also be thrilled)

・❥・ Letting their hand hover near yours but never quite touching. Every atom screaming: please reach back.

・❥・ Saving the last bite of something, “just in case you wanted it.” (They always do. You always remember.)

・❥・ Fixing their backpack strap, even when it’s not falling.

・❥・ Offering your umbrella wordlessly. Standing a little closer than needed.

・❥・ Sitting beside them at a group thing before your brain catches up. Like it’s instinct.

・❥・ Casually mentioning something they said weeks ago. Something small. Something they didn’t think you’d remember.

・❥・ Carrying an extra pen, just in case they forget.

・❥・Letting them rant. Letting them ramble. Letting them be.

・❥・ Your eyes finding theirs in a crowd before your brain says, look away.

・❥・ Brushing against them “by accident” and apologizing even though it lit your whole nervous system on fire.

[harrietwritesstuff]

y’all ever read a fanfic that you cannot believe an author just wrote for free?? what an honor it is to read a piece of someone’s soul they shared out of nothing but love for a piece of media. what a privilege it is to be allowed their talent because you share an interest!!

[harrietwritesstuff]

✨️ Surprise snippet Sunday ✨️

“His wedding ring-”

She offers it out, hand trembling. Andriy has never seen Volodymyr without it. He fiddles with it sometimes in meetings, twirling it around his finger as he thinks or when something stops him in his tracks - some news or a new development. He always reaches for it, as though for comfort, to ground himself and now without it, he is unmoored.

[harrietwritesstuff]

you COMMENT on fic? you comment on the story like it's worth something? oh! oh! love for reader! love for reader for One Thousand Years!!!!

[harrietwritesstuff]

working on the prompt fills from my inbox this morning - inspiration is v much here & present which is nice as I was beginning to panic that I could only ever write drabbles

[harrietwritesstuff]

scroll break ⚠️

go write 3 new sentences for your wip

[harrietwritesstuff]

good smut is really a character study and that is final. i need it to be about vulnerability i need it to be about trust or lack thereof and most of all i need it to be emotional agony. thats what sex is for

[harrietwritesstuff]

My greedy ass is here with more prompts. 👀

"You think I won’t?" – "I know you will. That’s the problem."

"You really like testing my patience, don’t you?"

"You’re starting to sound jealous."

"You're shaking." – "So are you."

"I’ve wanted this since the moment I met you."

"That shirt’s doing you no favors. Take it off."

I have been sat on these for a MONTH I am very sorry. Hope some Zecron makes up for the wait - I tried something a lil different; my first foray into something that isn't terribly unspoken and under the surface and is actually.. y'know evident lmao. The rest of the prompts are in my WIP doc. Enjoy! ❤️❤️

Emmanuel stares.

He’s tried not to, God knows, looking anywhere, everywhere; at the wall, the ceiling, the floor, the crowds outside the windows in their jubilation, the noise heard even several floors up - but he can’t take his eyes off Volodymyr.

He looks so– different.

The old suit hadn’t fit him, in the end. The one he’d saved for years in the back of his wardrobe, a beacon of hope, of optimism; the shirt didn’t look right, or the jacket - his shoulders too broad now, his whole self changed. He’d had a tailor make something new, the same one who had made his vyshyvankas, the sombre black military jacket. In this new suit, he looks oddly uncomfortable, running a finger beneath his collar, fiddling with the blue and yellow silk tie incessantly. Emmanuel swallows hard, his mouth dry. There’s something about the way the suit subtly hides the contours of his body, the opposite of the thin polo shirts, the snug sweatshirts that had followed the curve of his biceps, the breadth of his shoulders. How easy it had been then, to imagine what he looked like beneath them, all muscle and finely honed strength; but now, he’s suddenly a stranger and Emmanuel- he’s desperate to know, to be the one to unravel this particular mystery.

He wants - needs to see what’s underneath the silk jacket, the pressed shirt - stiff with starch, the delicate blue and yellow patterned tie. His mind wanders as he watches Volodymyr’s steady hands shift the knot, loosening- tightening by degrees.

“What?” His voice still carries the same rough timbre as it always has done, his English almost-perfect but not quite. He raises an eyebrow, reaching a hand up to rub against the stubble that’s no longer there. He’s clean shaven now too, his cheekbones sharp - his face suddenly decades younger, were it not for his eyes. His dark gaze traces over the familiar features, his stomach clenching as he sees something in Emmanuel’s face that he has only ever caught a fleeting glimpse of before.

“That shirt-” Emmanuel has stepped forward before his brain has caught up with him, a hand pressed against Volodymyr’s chest, idly feeling the other man’s heartbeat beneath his palm, the heat of his chest solid, warm. They’ve been this close before, many times - but this feels different, and; his heart– did it just skip a beat, or is that Emmanuel’s imagination? 

“Different, hm?” Vova's voice is determinedly neutral, swallowing hard, adams apple bobbing in his throat. Somehow, now - his palms are clammy; everything in the room blurred, save for those familiar blue eyes, that smile. His breath hitches in his throat.

“It’s doing you no favours-”

Emmanuel’s voice is suddenly husky as he leans down to whisper in Vova’s ear, close enough that he can almost feel the shiver run through the smaller man. He feels a hand around his elbow, tugging him closer, fingers digging in.

“No?”

Then, with all the authority of a man used to being obeyed, a hand reaching, tugging lightly, insistently at the tie, a smirk-

“Mmm. No. Take it off-”

[harrietwritesstuff]

✨️WIP Wednesday✨️

There's somehow too much going on to take in, despite the deafening silence in the room, the overwhelming sense of adrenaline flooding his body as he tries to figure out what to do next.

Find him.

There is blood on the tiles, in the sink, the shards of glass on the floor- no, not glass. It's the mirror. Shattered beyond repair. Maksym stares at his own fractured reflection, his heart thumping, mouth dry.

[harrietwritesstuff]

YOU 🥹🥺🥰 You're always so kind and lovely and I can never say thank you for reading enough - for coming on these little angsty journeys & giving such gorgeous comments and feelings and argh

(The thought of conflict wouldn't let me go - that Maks feels he's doing the right thing - wanting him to come back to life, oh - but Vova being just, too tired, in too much pain to say goodbye, yet again - because it feels like a sort of failure that he isn't there for them)

voksym & (vova’s) childhood bedroom 😔🙏

um. So. This ended up being just over 2k words of er.. angst I guess. Sorry for the wait - I hope you like it, love x

Under a cut for length.

He has seen this house in his dreams, so often now that it hardly feels real as he moves slowly up the pathway toward the door. Sometimes the dreams are quiet ones, a slow recall of memory, of the cracks in the pavement, the flowers in the garden, the familiar faces at the door of his mother and father. Those are the occasions where he lies there, wills himself back to sleep in the small, grim hours of the morning - desperate to have another few minutes with them, a fleeting glimpse of peace. There are other dreams, darker ones; where he wakes screaming bloody murder - the cracks in the pavement an abyss, the flowers trampled, their presence gone - just a gnawing, miserable agony in their place. Sometimes Maksym holds him as he shakes, his face wet with grief, and they wait together until the sun rises. More often though now, he doesn't. He will find Vova on the edge of his bed, his hands clenched into fists, his face pale - tormented, shivering.

Vova casts a glance back at him as he raises a hand to knock on the door. There is something unreadable in his face, something hard, brittle behind the tiredness and Maks feels his stomach flip.

“Sir, I-”

He doesn't finish his sentence and instead steps back a moment as the door swings open and Volodymyr is enveloped, not by a crowd of journalists baying for his words, not by anyone asking anything of him or begging him to help  - but by one woman.

“Mama-” 

Vova's voice is ruined from days of speeches, addresses, answering endless questions, scraped so raw that his throat hurts. With his face buried in her shoulder - just for a split second, this fleeting moment - he is a boy again, and everything can be solved by his mother. He inhales, his eyes squeezed shut as though if he contains it, if he breathes this moment in - he can spool it out, keep it going. He holds her to him, realises that she is somehow, smaller than before, thinner - his heart aches.

Everything is changing around him and there is so much he is missing. He should be here to help them - to weed the garden, to harvest the fruit, to paint the walls and fetch the Easter decorations down from the loft, to hang the Christmas lights, to drop Kyrylo off with them for weekends. But, no - not that; they are not lucky enough for that sort of idyll - not now in the world they live in. He should have sent them somewhere away from here, from their home where they watched him grow up, he should have sent them somewhere safer, ignored their stubborn refusal to go and done it out of love. The terror of it - each time he hears Kyrivih Rih in the list of targets, the spectre of loss that lingers behind him, threatens to overwhelm him even now in broad daylight.

He loves them more than he can bear some days.

Rymma pulls him back to her, away from his thoughts almost as if she had heard them - her voice steady, sure - gently scolding.

“My boy- tch! You have lost weight again! And you are not sleeping-”

She cups his face in her hands, looks at him steadily, her thumbs gently tracing the hollows below his eyes. She knows him, knows him so well, so keenly that he could let himself collapse here, on the garden path and weep - knowing she would pick him up, stem his grief as she had done when he was a child, his knees scraped, a friendship fractured by a cross word.

“Mama-” it tumbles out of him, half a plea - I’m sorry, I’m sorry for everything, his hands covering hers. She smiles faintly, lets go.

“Ah! No. I know. I know. You are busy, important-” she flaps a hand, ushering him in before her, then turns back to Maksym and smiles.

“You as well, yes. I have questions for you.”

The two of them are enveloped in the warmth of a house full of so very much - not a grey, tired office, a meeting room or a grim bunker. Instead, a stark reminder that life goes on, away from policy decisions, from lists of weapons and the dead. There are paintings on the walls, thick, richly woven carpets underfoot, clutter in the shape of teetering piles of books; well-thumbed. There is the smell of borscht, the low rumble of Oleksandr's voice as he too, reaches out and holds Vova to him, murmuring a greeting. It's a quiet, brief embrace, and this time, Vova holds his father as gently as he had his mother - letting it all wash over him. The faint scent of cigarettes, the flowers in the vase on the table, the chatter of his mother as she bustles in the kitchen, the clatter of plates and cups. He takes a low, steadying breath, his eyes half closed. He misses the glance that Oleksandr gives him - full of endless concern, but does not miss the weight of a hand on his shoulder, a brief squeeze.

His father asks carefully about things unrelated to the country, watching as the tension in his son slowly dissipates, his shoulders loosening as he curls into an old favourite armchair, picking at a loose thread on a throw blanket. In the soft light, his eyes are dark, tired, his smile strangely threadbare. Oleksandr feels his heart clench.

He asks about sport, about the last time Vova spoke to Evgeniy, his other friends. He asks after Olena, Kyrylo, Sasha - glad of the light that fills his son’s face as he offers out updates, his enthusiasm infectious. Oleksandr knows them already; knows of Sasha’s new boyfriend, of Kyrylo’s progress at school - Olena telephones them frequently, giving scant updates on her husband; instead filling the air with a determinedly normal stream of chatter about their grandchildren. But he cannot help but give Volodymyr this; this sheen of normality, to just be a father, talking about his children to his parents.

Maksym, keen not to intrude, does not linger; instead attempting to blend into the walls, to somehow make himself invisible. Rymma refuses to allow him to do so however, beckoning him into the kitchen, to a knife, a chopping board. The two of them work in companionable enough silence until-

“You are looking after him, yes?” She is not cold, far from it, but firm as she looks at Maksym and he is struck suddenly by just how much Vova looks like his mother. Those huge dark eyes - that say so much, and yet, so little. He swallows.

“I- I- yes.”

I try. There are days he won't let me; when he's drained beyond words.

“He is tired.”

Not a question, a statement - and in three syllables, all the worry of a mother for her son.

“Yes.”

He cannot lie, does not know how to, not to Rymma about Volodymyr - her beloved son.

“He is eating?”

“Y- He does-”

He remembers to eat most days. Sometimes he forgets.

“Make sure he rests, won’t you?”

Maksym opens his mouth; does not know how to say - he does not listen to me, he would work every hour God sends if he thought it would save Ukraine. Often, he tries to.

Instead, he says;

“I will.”

After dinner, warm and content, Volodymyr slips upstairs at the behest of his mother- ‘there are things in your bedroom surely you could use, go and look’ - her eyes beg him to take these relics, reminders; the books, the paper, the remnants of youth, to hold them to his chest, to remember all that came before, all that will come afterward. His step on the carpeted stairs is soft, his glance at Maksym somehow pointed. Ever loyal, he follows.

The door swings shut behind them.

“Why did you bring me here?”

Vova looks steadily at him across the tiny bedroom, scraps of his own childhood still evident in the posters on the wall, the scattered photographs. The joy beaming out from the photographs feels mocking. The single bed is neatly made, the sheets freshly pulled down, as though in some other universe, some other time, he would have stayed the night, surrounded by all this.

“Because you needed reminding-”

“Of what?” There is something sharp, vicious in his voice - more keen than anger, dangerously close to hurt, wounded. “What am I supposed to have forgotten this time? Everything I'm missing? Of how much they are missing because of a choice I made; they cannot watch Kyrylo, Sasha, grow up–”

His voice cracks.

Maksym swallows. 

This was a bad idea. Fuck.

He had hoped, somehow - that this would help, in some way. That this visit, short though it has been, would give him some light, some grace - something to hold onto against the storm that seems to threaten to engulf him at every turn. He'd had the idea weeks ago now, after the White House, after another sleepless night, after all of it; a burning desire to help, to heal.

But no. It hadn't helped. He's made things worse.

“I wanted to help-”

It sounds pathetic, dangerously close to insincere somehow just by the depth of feeling. Maksym realises though, what it must look like from the other side. Here is everything you are missing, everything you are locked out from, a choice of your own making. How was this meant to help? Dangling this in front of him, a little facet of peace, just to tear it away again.

“You wanted to help? Why did you think this would help?”

“You haven’t seen them in so long- I thought-”

“You thought that having to say goodbye to them.. again would help? That watching them; knowing that they are older now, that for all I do.. I cannot help them in a way that a son should- I cannot be here to–” his voice is fragile, so close to shattering that he has to stop, breathing hard, one hand clenched around the back of his old desk chair, knuckles white. Eventually, he speaks again, his voice tight.

“Don’t ever, ever presume to know what I need again. Do you understand?”

A chasm opens between them suddenly; Maksym feels the earth move beneath his feet. Unable to speak, he nods.

“Sir.”

Maksym and Vova do not speak again as the visit draws to a close, both Rymma and Oleksandr eking the moment out for as long as it will go, desperate for this not to be the last glimpse they have of their son; pale and tired. He smiles gently at the both of them as they stand in the doorway, arms around each other, as though if they were to let go, neither would be able to stand. 

“Thank you- I- this was-”

“Be well.”

Oleksandr’s instruction is quiet, understated as he claps his son on the shoulder; his eyes bright in the soft, orange light from the lamps.

Vova nods.

“And you. You won’t-?”

“No. We won’t leave. This is our home. You know that-”

Volodymyr understands; that they are stubborn and proud and will not do as he says and any other time, any other moment he would not change it for the world. Oleksandr puts a hand into his pocket, and then presses a small brass key into the palm of his son’s hand, folding his fingers over the metal, holding on tightly.

“Come by, anytime. This is your home too.”

Suddenly, Volodymyr cannot speak as his mother envelopes him in an embrace that has such strength in it that he can barely breathe, does not want to as he lets himself fold, buries his face into her shoulder and swallows down all the grief he cannot hold.

“Mama- I miss you- I miss you both-”

“I know.” Her voice in his ear is just for him - not for Maksym or his father. Just for him, quiet, soothing as she rubs his back. She can feel his ribs, the hollow knots of his spine and worry settles in her stomach again, Maksym's previous assurances for naught.

“We’re so proud of you. Keep going.”

The embrace, this one goodbye lasts, simultaneously for not enough time, and an eternity before suddenly; it is Maksym reminding him quietly that they need to leave, he is in the car again, waving out of the window, watching as the figures of his parents grow ever smaller in the distance and not for the first time, or the last, the howling void of grief inside his chest opens its jaws and sinks its teeth into him again.

Eventually, Maksym speaks, his voice tentative.

"I'm sorry. I thought- I never meant.. to hurt-"

Volodymyr does not reply.