notyourprince | 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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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?"

I'm not your prince, Anya

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