Sem'ya means Family

Chapter 4 - Iakov

   Mark is on his way to the kitchen to get himself a drink, having now finished collecting his mother's things from Scott's place and returned to Sergey's, although he stops just shy of the entrance, noticing his uncle talking to Klinok at the dining table again. Checking that Iakov is nowhere to be seen, the boy decides to eavesdrop on the pair.

"... Because he is family," Sergey says, looking somewhat irritated with the younger Russian. Klinok responds in their native tongue, and the older man appears deflated as he answers him. "I did not know then, but I have a good idea now. She would not have wanted me to get involved. She was... She knew I would understand that it was not consensual, but she must not have wanted me to intervene." Klinok scoffs, but notices Mark loitering in the doorway before he can say anything more. He nods in his direction, the movement intended to draw Sergey's attention to the boy. Mark smiles tightly, stepping out into the room and making his way to the fridge, pretending not to notice that the Russian man is giving him a death glare.

"Thirsty," the boy murmurs, pulling out a carton of juice and then fumbling around the kitchen until he finds a glass. Klinok scowls at the boy as he trudges out of the kitchen, leaving Mark alone with his uncle. Sergey laughs softly, shaking his head, startling his nephew slightly.

"Do not mind him," he says. "He will just take a while to adjust to the changes around here." Mark forces another smile, shrugging it off.

"It's fine," he mumbles, sipping from his drink, eyeing his uncle over the top of his glass. He decides to gently pry. "Were you talking about Mum?" Sergey hesitates, chewing his bottom lip as he contemplates how to answer the question.

"Yes, we were," he confesses. There's a pause, as Mark waits for the older man to fill the silence. Sergey resigns, "Klinok had reservations about how it could be so that I had a nephew that I did not know about, but it is all perfectly clear to me." Mark swallows the lump in his throat, feeling the promise of tears prickling in the back of his eyes. He forces them down however, trying to stop himself from becoming emotional about the passing of his mother.

"So, uh, you said something about... something not being consensual..." he stammers, stumbling over the words as he bites back the emotions building within. Again, Sergey takes his time with answering, uncomfortable with where the conversation is going, but Mark wants to know everything he can about his complicated, secretive family.

"Perhaps that is a topic for another day..." he says softly, gently lowering his nephew's hopes. The boy nods, accepting that this is all he'll get for now, and he makes his way back to his bedroom. He closes the door behind himself and curls up into bed, burying his face in his pillow to muffle the sounds of his sobs.

...

Mark stares blankly up at the board, idly scribbling in his book as his teacher goes on a tangent about whatever novel it was that the class was meant to be reading for the essay in a few weeks. The boy had received a free pass for some of his subjects because of the incident, as he'd taken a substantial amount of time off of school to recover from the trauma, leaving him somewhat behind the rest of his peers.