3:30 AM. The rest of the world- or at least the rest of the neighborhood- was still asleep; Ivan Braginski, on the other hand, had been up for quite a while. Except for a minuscule, unexplainable smile, his expression was completely blank as the Russian teen kneeled in front of the open refrigerator. There wasn't much on the shelves- just a few condiments, leftovers, and bottles of vodka- so it took no time for him to locate the container of cabbage soup he was looking for. He set it on the counter beside an empty bowl and stood up straight.

It was breakfast time. But she probably didn't know that.

The path Ivan navigated would seem exquisite to a stranger, though it had become a habit for him. Through the kitchen, down the hall, past the bathroom, through the door leading to the basement, down the stairs, behind the stairs, through the doorway to the laundry room. Smiling absently, pointlessly, as he always did, Ivan set the tray that carried the bowl of soup on the washing machine. Set on the floor in front of it was a square-shaped, stained and rather homely rug, but Ivan knew it was more than that. He kneeled down and dragged at the carpet until it completely revealed a pair of large wooden doors in the floor. He yanked one half open, retrieved the tray from the washing machine, and continued down the short flight of concrete stairs.

This was the part that got his heart pounding, not necessarily in a good way.

Ivan positioned the tray in one arm so that one edge was pressed against the crook of his elbow and the other had his fingers curled around it. Since he was so tall, he barely had to reach up with his free hand in order to reach the key hidden atop the doorframe. His constant smile faltered slightly as he held his breath. He inserted the key into the lock, jiggled and twisted it until it clicked, and slowly turned the doorknob. "I brought-" Ivan was interrupted by a flailing figure of rags and scraggly blonde hair, screaming and clawing at him.

This was all simply part of routine.

The Russian boy's height came in handy in many situations, including this one. He managed to reach sideways to rest the tray on an ill-kept bed off in the corner, using his free hand to hold the fuming girl at bay. He then clamped a large hand over her mouth, not thinking much of the fact that she began to snap at the skin of his palm.

"Look, I brought you breakfast. Yummy soup, da?" Ivan murmured once the girl had reduced herself to angry twitches. He gently led her toward the bed, only to have her abruptly lash out and send the bowl crashing to the ground. Ivan was so used to this reaction that he barely blinked.

The girl took a half step back and stepped on a piece of the broken ceramic, shrieking furiously at the sharp pain. She stared Ivan straight in the face, piercing him with distinct purple-blue eyes as if it was his fault the bowl had broken. Ivan offered a tiny, tiny smile. "You can't keep doing this. You know you have to eat, Natalya."

A renewed mixture of panic , rage, and the slightest bit of agony suddenly exploded across the girl's features. "But my name is-"

"Shhh, Little Sister." And that's when Ivan slid a syringe out of the pocket of his dark jeans, stabbing the needle right into a vein on the girl's arm. The drug immediately took its effect and drowsiness overwhelmed the girl's system. Her eyes fluttered shut, and her limp body collapsed sideways onto the bed, but not before a bluish-purple contact slid unnoticed out of her left eye.

Knock knock knock. Ivan froze at his kitchen table, his purple eyes shooting away from the screen of his laptop. He was unlike the other teens his age in countless reasons, and one of them was that the last thing he ever expected was someone visiting his house, even on a weekend. Sliding to his feet with more grace than you'd expect from someone of his size, he moved the blinds of the window beside the door to cautiously peer outside. Standing on his porch, smiling brightly and rocking back and forth on his feet, was the Italian boy from next door. Feliciano Vargas…

"Da…?" Although Ivan was skeptical of Feliciano's presence, he couldn't remove the ghost of a smile that almost constantly seemed to haunt his features.

"Ciao, Ivan! Can I come in?" Without waiting for an answer, Feliciano practically skipped inside. Ivan blinked but didn't say anything. He closed the door and relocked it. "Ve, is this what I think it is?!" Feliciano had been staring around the room with an airy smile, until his amber eyes landed on Ivan's computer screen. He scrambled over to it, his grin growing even further. His suspicions had been correct: open on Ivan's Internet Explorer was the YouTube channel, ~pizzaxpastaxlover~. "You listen to my music?"

"I looked you up," Ivan indicated, simply not seeing anything wrong with the statement. Fortunately, Feliciano was too oblivious to be struck by it at all and simply continued to poke around the room. Ivan never questioned him; maybe this was normal behavior for new neighbors.

Feliciano's mouth suddenly formed a small "o," creating an expression that showed he had remembered something. From the canvas bag he had slung over his shoulder, he retrieved a see-through CD case containing a shiny silver disc. It was blank, except for three words written in black Sharpie in an almost childish handwriting: "Music for Ivan." Grinning beamishly as ever, Felicano held it out to the Russian.

For a moment, Ivan just stared at the outstretched case. Was this a… gift? He saw on TV and read in books about people getting "presents" for thing like birthdays and holidays, but he couldn't recall ever receiving anything like that. Maybe in a distant memory that was now long forgotten, erased from his memory to spare him the pain….

Ivan took the CD from Feliciano. His large hand seemed to swallow up the Italian's much daintier one. "…What is this?" Ivan asked.

"A present! I felt bad that you only had old music to listen to, so I downloaded a bunch of Russian music to this CD for you!" Feliciano explained brightly, practically bouncing up and down where he stood.

"…Okay. Spasibo," Ivan stated. He hoped that thanking Feliciano was what he was supposed to do….

"So can I look around your house, Ivan? It looks so similar to mine from the outside, I wanna know what it's like from the inside!" Ivan blinked slowly. Had he really gone so long withdrawn from society that he hadn't realized how headstrong people are? Perhaps it was just this one particular boy, but still….

He answered without thinking it through very well. "Da, you may." The Italian boy's features lit up even further, and he skipped off to poke his head around every corner.

It then struck Ivan that Feliciano might have the intention of exploring the entire house. He didn't strike Ivan as the observant type, but his curiosity was certainly shamelessly high. So, Ivan decided he'd follow the boy around, keeping a good distance between them so that it just seemed like he happened to be drifting about. He would play a game of Hot and Cold with himself. If Feliciano was far from the basement door, Ivan would tell himself he was cold: his favorite temperature. Upstairs would be freezing, just how he liked it. However, if Feliciano was so much as on the same floor as the basement door, he would be unpleasantly warm. If he wandered down that hall, he would be hot. Ivan didn't like heat; he'd then have to toss Feliciano out of his house.

And that's exactly what he essentially ended up doing. Because Feliciano did not end up hot; he was on fire.

Feliciano had ventured through a majority of the house, even popping into a few of the empty bedrooms. He realized once he had skipped back downstairs that he had neglected to check down one hall; a hall he assumed to be identical to the one in his own house. He'd just steal a peek of the basement, then head on home to make some pasta…

Red flags shot up in Ivan's head the moment Feliciano turned the corner. His muscles tensed, but he controlled himself; maybe he was just looking for the bathroom… No: the boy's slightly tanned hand was turning the doorknob to the basement.

Ivan was behind him quicker than you'd think was physically possible, his massive hand on Feliciano's scrawny shoulder. "You should go home," he insisted quietly, turning Feliciano to face him. He pouted slightly, but his smile was back in a flash.

"Oh, okay. Well I like your house! It could be fixed up, but it's nice. I hope you like your CD!" he babbled, already heading toward the door. Good.

"Ivan?" Feliciano paused in the doorway, glancing over at the much taller boy. "I think we should be friends."

Friends…? Ivan stared at him, absolutely shocked. He hadn't had a friend since- well. It had been a long time since he had a friend. "…Da, we should."

As long as he never, ever found out the truth about her.

~Author's Note~

God I've been neglecting this story... I've got so many other stories that are higher on my priorities, plus it's been a long time since I've seen House at the End of the Street so my memory on how it went is getting blurry. Fortunately I was prepared for that and wrote out a vague outline of how the story's gonna go... it'll probably drift farther and farther away from the actual movie's plot, but hey, I doubt most of you have actually seen it anyway. XD