notyourprince | I'm not your prince, Anya

I'm not your prince, Anya

He sort of hopes that Gleb hasn't told Anya about him. Dmitry has no plans to seek her out and can't imagine that she wants to see him at all. Back at the opera house, he'd tried to make amends by chasing after the Dowager Empress but none of that changes what she said to him last, or how much he'd deserved it.

So he hopes that Gleb won't tell her but Deputy Commissioner Vaganov is (or was) a government worker, which makes him a professional tattletale. Anya probably won't want to see him anyway, even if she knows, so he hasn't used his confusing new phone to try and seek her out, quietly vows not to really.

An hour after he wakes up in an unfamiliar but warm bed, the world looking a little softer in the morning light, his resolve wavers. Dmitry talks himself out of it, making excuses in his head about how he'll have to learn how to use the damn thing and that'll take all morning. Better to wait until later. Weeks later, optimally.

Working at convincing himself this is all even real, Dmitry takes a long hot shower, amazed that it never cools down. Even the hotel had eventually run out but not here. If it weren't for the nagging sense of dread and his supposed inability to escape this place, Dmitry would be inclined to say it's nice.

After a while, even he can't stand there forever and he gets out. Dmitry's suitcase, bought cheaply off the street, looks even more battered against the clean angles of the apartment but at least he arrived with extra clothing. Apparently, that makes him lucky.

He's barely pulled up his trousers when he hears thundering footsteps in the hall and a loud pounding at the door.

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She had given him plenty of time.

It could be argued that a little over twelve hours was hardly plenty of time, but Anya has waited months for him to arrive. Going an entire extra day, knowing that he was out there, felt a untenable. It had taken all of her effort to not run out and look for him when Gleb had told her that he had found him in the train station. A little surge of jealousy had sparked through her then. After all, she had been the one to find Gleb. Why couldn't she be the one to find Dmitry too?

Saying any of this to Gleb had been out of the question. It seemed almost hurtful, despite the fact that she cares for them both for different reasons. Just because she'd been hopeful for Dmitry's arrival doesn't change anything about what she thinks of Gleb. But that was yesterday. When Dmitry failed to materialize on her doorstep the next morning, she had put on Pushkin's leash and set off.

As she walked, she'd worked herself more into a state of frustration with Dmitry eventually scooping up the little dog to make better time. Making it to his door, she pounds on it with such force that it hurts a little. It echoes down the corridor, even to make Wanda stick her head out to see what is happening. With a pleading look, Anya gestures to the door and explains that she needs it unlocked as there is someone from home that she needs to be cross at. To her surprise, the other woman helps her, unlocked the door with red magic. Perhaps Anya's expression had been enough. Giving thanks, she slams the door open.

"Dima, what do you think you are doing," she shouts before she can really even see him through the open door. "I can't believe that you would do this to me."

When he hears the pounding, Dmitry's first assumption is that this is the police. Somehow, all of this is really a farce engineered by the government to trap him and now he's going to get dragged off. It only gets weirder and worse when his door glows red and then opens, not even broken down, as–

As Anya comes charging in, a small dog clutched in her arms. Dmitry can only stand there, his undershirt still clutched in his hand, mouth falling open. He'd say it's not some secret police raid but Anya in a temper may well be bad enough. At least he'll die looking at something beautiful.

Dully, he makes a mental note to tell Gleb off for telling. As if it will make an impact.

Wait. Dima?

Confused, damp, and caught off-guard, Dmitry can only stare, processing both the nickname and what horrible thing he's done to her now. "I..." Yes. Great start. Very eloquent.

Beyond getting him to open the door for her, Anya didn't really have much a plan. So many emotions whirl around within her. Happiness fights with anger, delight with confusion. She knows that she arrived here furious with him, hurt and betrayed, but Darrow pulls people from all over time and space. If Gleb hadn't answered her question when she asked if he mentioned her, she'd wonder if this was a Dmitry who had met her yet. But she knows that he has, that he knows her just as she knows him.

This only makes the fact that he didn't come to her more frustrating.

Pushkin, for his part, is eager to be in a new place and bored with being held. He lets out an excited bark before wriggling free, jumping out of her arms and taking off for the couch. Having been dragging out of her thoughts and into the present, she realizes very sharply that not only is Dmitry in front of her, but he isn't wearing a shirt. What's more, she notes, is that he looks quite fetching if a little disheveled. He is a good-looking man and she's only human. A blush heats her cheeks as she steps into his flat, not bothering to wait for him to invite her in. She's staring a bit, but it can't be helped.

Putting her hands on her hips as she approaches coming to stand a little for than a foot away from him, she diverts her gaze upwards to his face. His hair is still wet. "Why didn't you come find me? There are buses and taxis and I know that they give you a map. I waited for you and nothing. Care to explain yourself?"

And suddenly there they are. Dmitry half-naked, Anya yelling, and a little dog claiming his sofa as if he owns it. For a second, he can only stare, only sort of taking in her words. She makes it sound as if it's been weeks since he arrived instead of hours, as if she had expected Dmitry to take one look at Gleb and demand escort right to her doorstep. "Waiting?" he asks, slow and dumbfounded. Why would she be waiting for him?

And why is she looking at him like that?

Should he be bowing? Dmitry thinks he should probably be bowing, except that he can't tear his eyes away from her. Eventually, he bends at the waist, arms spread wide, but head still tilted up. It's not like that parade so long ago, not like the hotel room, where he sank to one knee. This is brief and brusque and confused.

"You didn't want anything to do with me..."

She should avert her gaze. Just because he is shirtless and wonderful looking and all the blood seems to be in her cheeks, doesn't mean that she should keep looking at him. No amount of being happy that he is here at last should be enough for her to forget all sense of decency. Standards for modesty might be completely different here, but she's still human and she wasn't wholly raised by wolves.

Anya's hand is starting to move up to cover her eyes when Dmitry bows. Of all things she expected him to do, a bow isn't one of them. He's only done that twice before, three times if she counts the fact that he was kneeling when she entered the room at the ballet. She knows why he's doing it, but the movement is stiffer, more awkward for reasons beyond his partial undress.

"Yes, waiting," she repeats before letting out a frustrated huff. She closes the space between them, bending slightly to reach out and grasp his hand, gently tugging him to his feet. "Don't do that. You don't have to do that. Not here, not to me. I know I didn't. I was mad at you for a long time, still am a little, but I'm glad you're here."

At least she has the decency to blush. Not enough decency to look away, but at least she's blushing as she stares at him. Nice to know that he still has that effect on someone.

Dmitry doesn't know exactly what he'd hoped to achieve by bowing but Anya's temper suddenly turns lukewarm. It's too much to say it's cooled but she seems less ready to bowl him over in her fury as she forces him to straighten up. "I'm pretty sure that bowing is the bare minimum I should be doing." Groveling, probably, but he hasn't quite compromised that part of his pride yet.

"A long time?" He repeats, scrunching up his mouth. "For me that was barely a few days ago." Paris had been swirling with rumors in the interim as, Dmitry presumes, she'd been dressed and fitted and whatever it was that royals did in their spare time.

"I deserve every bad hand that life deals me, were about the words if I recall correctly."

Keeping her gaze firmly fixed on his face, she gives his arm another tug, a bit more forceful this time. Her frustration flares up suddenly. There is something about how he says it, the fact that there is a supposed minimum and she doesn't want it even though she should.

"Besides Gleb, no one else here knows that I'm Anastasia Romanov," she tosses out as an explanation. "But I know that I am her. I remember that much."

She remembers more than that. Remembers the night her family died and the years after. Remembers the anger she felt at him, the hurt and pain of betrayal. She had wanted to believe the best in Dmitry, still did. They had had something real. Or so she had thought. "Six months. I've been here for six months. I arrived midway through yelling at you," she recalls, her tone a bit admonishing. "You still should have found me. I had hoped that I was more than a pawn to you."

He lets himself get yanked up and has to fight back a smile, the urge to tell her she's being a brat. It might be true but it's the last thing he should say now. "He told me you were safe," Dmitry says instead and there's weight to it born of a less flighty emotion than anger.

Anya continues on, not quite as furious but there's still an autocratic lilt in her words. Dmitry can hear Vlad chuckling; She said that like a Romanov! What a temper and it's still directed at him.

"You weren't." Well, that's not precisely true. "That's how it started. Just a con. But you knew things no one but Anastasia Romanov could know." She remembered him. No fake Anastasia would ever have conjured up such an inconsequential detail. "I went to the Dowager Empress to try and change her mind. I..." Well. Admitting to stomping on Anya's last living relative's dress is probably going to do him no favors.

"Of course you're more than a pawn. Had been for a long time. And you hated me. So why wouldn't I stay out of your way?" And if, maybe, he'd thought it might hurt too much to look at her and know she was beyond his reach...she doesn't need to hear about that either.

There is so much information in what Dmitry has said that she doesn't quite know where to process it. Of course he is right. She knows that now. In truth, she knew that before the Dowager Empress turned her away without looking at her. But the pain of rejection had made it so easy to brush that aside, to claim that the details were just wishful thinking.

But the rest of it. The fact that he went to try and change her mind. That surprises her. Anya wants to believe that he went back for the money, that he was trying a last ditch effort to get rich.

"Did you..." she starts, sounding tremulous before clearing her throat and starting again, stronger this time. "Did you take the money?"

There is nothing that money will do for him now, not here. But she needs to know. It is an important detail. None of that changes what she says next. It feels like a strange betrayal of a man who isn't here, but it would be wrong to let him carry on without knowing. "I never hated you. I was mad at you, but I never actually hated you." There is a calmness in her voice that disappears, voice raising despite herself. "You should have at least come to see me to confirm that. You shouldn't just assume a girl is going to hate you after suddenly appearing in a random city."

There's a second where Dmitry considers lying. If he tells Anya he'd been selfish, taken the money and gone, maybe she'll leave him right there and that will be the end of them and maybe it's better that way. If he lies, he won't have to look at her and know he'll never, ever be worthy and that she'll never love him back. Except that he can't lie to her, not anymore.

"Why would I?" he says. "After everything I did to you, how could I?" Vlad could enjoy the fruits of their con but Dmitry couldn't. He wasn't ready to stand by and smile for cameras and pretend like Anya didn't hate him. Or maybe not pretend. He trusts Anya not to lie so that when she says she doesn't hate him, Dmitry has to believe it. A vise that he hasn't realized is squeezing at his chest suddenly loosens and Dmitry can't hide a sigh of relief, maybe even joy.

"To be fair," he says, trying for a smile and not quite making it. Some smooth conman he is. "I was pretty sure Gleb was going to tattle on me even when I told him not to."

A completely unexpected lightness rushes through her as he admits that he didn't take it. It feels a like relief, as if she has let out a breath that she didn't know that she had been holding. Ever since Gleb told her that she really was Anastasia, Anya has been hoping that Dmitry hadn't taken the money. It would have been insane for him not to take it. Money was crucial in surviving, but a small part of her hoped for an impossible thing, that he would think she was worth more than gold. Somehow along the way she realized that he mattered to her in a way she couldn't articulate and never thought she'd have the opportunity to.

"Because that money would help you survive," she says softly with a faint smile on her face. It's foolish to be happy at that admission, but she is. "Is it strange that I'm glad you didn't take it? I was really hoping that you hadn't, you foolish boy."

The mention of Gleb earns a bark from Pushkin who reinserts himself in the conversation by sticking his head out from under the couch. He must have crawled under there at some point, exploring his surroundings. A confused, almost guilty feeling makes her smile falter for a second. "Oh, yes, that does make sense. Gleb wouldn't keep something like this from me. He knows better."

The temptation had been powerful, he'll admit that. Dmitry can't deny a moment when he'd looked at the Dowager Empress' money and imagined all the places he could go, all the places he'd never have to go back to. Except there had been the guilt, the knowledge that he'd hurt Anya with his schemes, and the certainty that there'd be no redemption if he went through with it. "Even I have conscience enough to know you shouldn't be paid just for doing what's right." For doing only what she's owed.

Anya's got a smile on her face that makes his chest squeeze and Dmitry can't find the regret that should come from walking away from that much money, this great a prize. "You wouldn't be the first to call me foolish, but I am older than you." As if that matters all that much.

He'd argue more but he's abruptly reminded of both Gleb and Anya's little mutt. Somehow, it's the latter he finds stranger. "You have a dog," he says, bewildered. She has a dog and both of them had stormed in her like they own the place. Typical Anya.

He didn't take the money.

The thought swirls in a loop through her mind, repeated over and over again. It shouldn't make her feel lightheaded and dizzy and hopeful. Dmitry is right — he shouldn't have accepted a reward for doing the decent thing. But he still had nothing and he still had to survive. Why does the fact that he turned his back on it make her want to close the gap between them and kiss him? To call him more names?

Anya doesn't do that though. She smiles a bit wider and shrugs instead. "True, but only by two years. I am a grand duchess and I can call you foolish as much as I would like to," she teases with a laugh as Pushkin moves over to Dmitry and begins snuffling at his pants.

"I do. His name is Pushkin, but I call him Sasha. He's an orphan like us."

Anya is looking at him like...like...Well he doesn't know what but it's intense and he can't read the exact expression on her face. Happy, yes, but there's something else layered into it that he can't quite place either. It almost seems profound and bigger then him but then, he really is just a small part of a much larger world.

"Hey!" His thoughts are interrupted by a cold nose against his ankle that makes Dmitry jump. The goosebumps that rise up over his skin are a reminder that he's at a distinct disadvantage here. The shirt he's forgotten is still in his hands and he finally pulls it on, hoping to recover a little dignity.

"An orphan like us." Dmitry shakes his head at her. "You're too sentimental." He sizes up the dog, wondering if it hates him or not. Most dogs tend to.

Anya can't say that she'd forgotten Dmitry hadn't been wearing a shirt, but through her efforts to not stare it had sort of faded into the background. When he puts one on, the awareness comes flooding back, warm on her cheeks. She's a little sorry that he's done that while at the same time being very grateful. Now she's a little less aware of him in that way,

"Perhaps," she says with a little shrug watching as Pushkin continues to nose around. The little dog looks back at Anya for a moment and she nods encouragingly. Taking that as a sign, Pushkin sits back on his haunches, paws up as he begs for Dmitry's attention. "That doesn't make it less true. Gleb found him or he found Gleb rather and then he came to be mine. See? He likes you."

He sees her blush and tries not to be pleased about it, reminding himself it's not going to amount to anything. Maybe Anya doesn't hate him but that's a far cry from loving him back. Thinking about it puts a little red on his cheeks and he looks away under the pretense of getting Pushkin's cold nose off his leg.

It seems the dog doesn't hate him (or doesn't hate him yet), so Dmitry gives the dog a cautious pat on the head, a little bit nervous and perfunctory. He still doesn't know what the hell to make of today.

"Gleb didn't mention the dog," he says. "I think he was too busy trying to convince me I wasn't about to get shipped off to meet my father."

The hint of red on his cheeks must be Anya's imagination. There is nothing that she could have done to cause it, her own blush still fading on her cheeks. Her feelings, complicated and confused with regards to Dmitry are back again after months being kept willfully on the edge of her thoughts.

Later, when she is alone, she will puzzle over their interaction and then she will try to carry on. There are other things to consider. Other people.

"I can see how that would happen. Being informed that you are not on your way to a firing squad or gulag outranks dog ownership," she answers with a soft smile. "Just a little bit."

There's so little softness left in Anya. Yekaterinburg forged her but the ten years after have kept her sharp. So when she smiles at him like that, it makes his heart jump a little in funny ways.

To think, there was a time when he might've been able to kiss her.

"I'm still not entirely convinced I won't wake up on a rickety train to Siberia," he admits. "Or a firing squad." It makes him remember Gleb's mention of Anya and the real fear that had passed through him before he understood.

"You're all right though?"

"I would never let you face a firing squad," she says without thinking, meaning every word of it. Anya's anger might be a simmering coal, but she couldn't lose him not when she only just got him back. That wouldn't be right and she would fight like hell to stop it.

In response to his question, she nods. "I am. I have a job. Two actually. An apartment, a dog as you see. This isn't so bad. It isn't Russia, but it isn't bad."

"I wouldn't have let you get close enough to the firing squad to save me," Dmitry replies. It's either poetic or incredibly arrogant but he realizes he means it. If he'd gone back to Russia, he would have accepted an execution rather than betray Anya.

"No, it's not bad," he agrees. That much he already knows from his lodgings alone. "Two jobs already, though? You don't sit idle, do you?"

That strikes him. Months ago, before he admitted to not taking the money, she would have accused him of not wanting an investment go to waste. Now she is simply glad that neither has to face that prospect. Firing squads are a thing for other places — that day two weeks after she arrived excepted. "Then we should be glad we don't have to worry about that."

It isn't a question of who would save who. It is just what they do now.

Looking down at her shoes briefly, she shrugs. "I don't know how to sit idle. I don't think I ever knew. I've already been fired from one I had months ago for fighting."

"Fighting?" He has no reason to be incredulous; he's seen Anya fight firsthand. She's small and stubborn and full of fire but he can't imagine what kind of trouble she'd run into here, what kind of altercation could get her sacked from a job. "What have you been up to?" It comes out before he has time to pause and think, wonder if his tone is maybe too warm for whatever's going on between them. It seems like that temper of hers could still flare up.

"They guys deserved it. They were rude and cheap." The emphasis she places on that last point makes Anya's opinions on that last part very clear. She expected a certain level of gross behavior. While she didn't welcome it, people tended to give into their baser natures when given a chance. But doing that so brazenly and not even tipping properly was crossing a bridge too far.

She didn't regret what she'd done. Biting her lower lip, she looks coyly up at him before lifting her chin in mild defiance. "They deserved it. I've just been living my life. Almost no one knows my father was the tsar here, so why shouldn't I just live?"

Dmitry lets out a sharp breath of disapproval at the cheapness more than the rudeness. Anya has a thick skin and a sharp temper but if this way of life is so much better, so much more affordable and sustainable, then shouldn't people be able to afford to be generous? Perhaps, no matter what party stands in power, it's too much to ask decency of people.

"Is that..." Is that what you want? Is that what makes you happy? seem like questions he's not allowed to ask. It doesn't change that he wants to know. "Does that work for you?"

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I'm not your prince, Anya

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