notyourprince | Under the stars I awaken to the sound of a firebird [Anya, July 4]

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anya

Under the stars I awaken to the sound of a firebird [Anya, July 4]

He has no excuse, couldn't think one up, even if he wanted to. Dmitry has been avoiding Anya and Gleb. The last few weeks have been spent occupying himself with anything he can find to prevent himself from thinking about Anya, the stupid things he said, and the mess he's made. He's finally mastered his phone (more or less), taken on more responsibilities at the bakery, and–in a particular fit of desperation–trained Katyusha to come when called and also to play fetch.

Though he's no stranger to hard work, Dmitry thinks this has to be the first time he's ever been remotely dedicated to it. At least, under the 'decadent nightmare' of capitalism, he can reap some benefits. The most recent is the pair of headphones looped around his neck as he leaves his shift to walk home. They fit like earmuffs and block out noise until any music he puts on feels like an orchestra in his head.

He's about to slip them on and leave when a loud crack fills the air and Dmitry jumps. His head whips around looking for police, for a weapon, only to land on some kids laughing in a side alley as they throw tiny poppers at the ground. They let out a terrific bang and a brief flash of light, harmless. Dmitry recovers his breath and doesn't have a chance to calm down before he thinks of the last time he heard real gunshots.

Anya. Dmitry remembers the way she'd crouched down, lost to some half-formed memories. Hadn't she said something once, too, about fireworks? He's heard people talking about them all day today, some American holiday. Does Anya know?

Before Dmitry can think too hard about it, he breaks into a dead sprint toward her building and away from his.

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Anya had only gone down to the boardwalk briefly, to take a quick look at the water and the party. Having heard a group of people talking with anticipation about the fireworks that were to come, she had felt her heartbeat quicken in anticipatory fear. The memory of what happened on Founders' Day, the echoes bringing memories too close to the surface. It had felt like drowning.

Retreating back to her apartment with a strange battered sausage on a stick in her hands, she had paused at a corner store to grab something distracting. That had been hours ago, well before dark, before Gleb had come to collect Pushkin, and a promise to check in later had been made.

The volume on the television is turned up louder than it needs to be, but the sound of an explosion breaks through Space Hospital's dialogue, sending a bolt down her spine and she drops the piece of licorice into her lap. She's half-frozen trying to keep the darkness at bay as she counts the beats, fixing on the program that she almost misses the knock at the door. Her heart leaps as she bolts up and over to it, flinging it open with hopeful anticipation at unexpected relief.

"You're early, you knew to come," she says breathlessly before she realizes it isn't Gleb at her door. Stunned she blinks at Dmitry, surprised to see him after so many weeks of not. She'd been waiting for him to come to her, had all but given up hope. It had been his turn. Confusion and anger mars her features. "What are you doing here?"

Another boom fills the air, louder without walls to dampen the noise. She yelps and pulls herself inside, away from the sound.

When she comes to the door, her eyes are lit up with hope, anticipation, and for a moment, Dmitry believes it's for him. Then that temper comes through and Dmitry's still trying to catch his breath. He'd heard the first firework go off while he ran and his lungs are burning from the effort still but when Anya jumps at the second firework, he follows her quickly inside and shuts the door.

"I heard...I heard there would be fireworks and I thought..." Dmitry frowns, still at a loss for words. He'd thought what? He'd thought Anya would want to see him after he bungled things so badly last time? "I wanted to see if you were all right." You're early. Anya's waiting for someone else. He isn't needed. He should go, stop turning up at Anya's door to make a mess of things. It's not him.

He's never going to be her prince.

Dmitry looks between Anya and the closed door and realizes his mistake. "Can I come in?"

Her stomach does a hopeful sort of flip despite Anya's wishes. She doesn't know what to do with this, with these feelings. He said that he loved her, he arrived here and then hid from her. She loves him, and while his confession of love may be true, she doesn't trust it. Dmitry keeps leaving her, keeps running and hiding and she doesn't want to always be the one who must go hunting. She isn't Ivan and he isn't a firebird.

Swallowing hard, she closes her eyes as the boom and rumble washes over her, trying to take a deep breath. "I didn't know they would effect me so badly," she admits opening her eyes. "But you did? I didn't know that you thought of me anymore."

It's a harsh sort of statement, one born out of wounds that she is trying and failing to pretend not to have. Being hurt by someone is one thing, being hurt by someone you care about is entirely another. Studying his face, she considers what he has asked her before she takes a step back towards the living room, beckoning for him to follow her. "Yes you may. You can even stay for a while &mdash"

The rest of the thought is cut off by another boom, muffled by the walls and door, but still closer than she'd like. Reflexively she starts to curl in on herself.

That stings and Dmitry knows he deserves it. "I think about you all the time," he admits. "And I should have..." He should have a lot of things. Should have been better. Should have swallowed his words. Should never have burst out with that stupid, instinctive, and poorly-made jest. It's too late to take any of that now.

This is a conversation he's rehearsed in his head too damned often lately. It unpleasantly at his pride but he knows that Anya's pride and temper will outlast his and rightly so. "I should have apologized."

He follows and freezes when the next burst of fireworks starts. This isn't the first time that he's seen Anya like this but he hates it. Ever since that night in Paris, he's come to hate it more than even before. There's something wrong about Anya shaken, looking small.

At a loss for anything to do, Dmitry takes the headphones off from around his neck and turns them on, placing them over Anya's ears.

It is exactly what she wants to hear him say and the opposite of it. A painful dichotomy wrapped in one simple phrase: I think about you all the time. If he had truly been thinking of her, then why has he spent so much time hiding from her, burying himself in other things? Anya thinks it would hurt less if she had never crossed his mind at all over the past few weeks.

"Yes you should have, Dmitry Vladirovitch." The formality of his name and his patronymic is her attempt to put some distance between the pain and anger she feels and the man himself. But he is here and she hopes he has more of an explanation to go with is apology.

Her hands are up to cover her head when the world goes a bit quieter, the weight of headphones suddenly over her ears. The surprise of it causes her to still, hands freezing inches from her head as she looks up at him. The next boom comes before she has a chance to ask him what he's doing, but she barely hears it. Just the rumble of the floor gives it away.

"What?" she asks a bit louder than necessary. "Why?"

He knows why she's speaking so formally but he also can't help the twitch of his mouth when Anya implies that Vlad is the closest thing he has to a father. It's entirely true, which only makes the inappropriate laughter harder to smother.

It's the loud, seemingly-endless banging and booming in the sky that gets him to focus, turning his attention back to Anya. Judging by the sheer amount of color and light in the sky, he thinks this must be the finale of the display and he risks a turning gesture. Maybe, with the noise muffled, she can actually enjoy them.

Regardless, he waits until he's certain they've ended, or at least hit a lull, before he pulls them away from her ears.

"I should have apologized," he says again. "Because I said stupid things, because..."

Dmitry takes a deep breath and tries to be calm about this. He can't lose Anya because of his pride. Not again. "Because I got scared of losing you. So I took myself out of the running."

Her hands go up to cover the headphones, holding them uselessly in place. They are secured by the band, but having something to do with her hands feels important and Anya was already halfway there. The sound of the explosions is muffled, but she can still feel her heartbeat quicken with every thud, painful at the imagined movement of floor.

Somehow in all of it, her hands had slipped back down to her sides. Staring at him, she exhales the breath she hadn't realized she had been holding.

"Yes you did," she agrees with a faint shake of her head, agreeing with his self-assessment. His words had surprised and hurt her. Over the time since she last saw him, she's had time to mire in that pain. It hasn't scabbed over yet. "You broke my heart, Dmitry. And I didn't even get a say." Her own deep breath echoes his. "It wasn't fair. I thought..."

Dmitry looks away, unable to quite meet her eyes for a second. There's a new scar on his arm, small and freshly healed, from a dropped plate at work. It'll fade and join the rest that he has, all the little nicks and scrapes from growing up in St. Petersburg, raising himself. He pokes at the mark with his thumb.

"I wasn't thinking about that. Or anything, I guess." He'd just been protecting himself, tried to find something so outrageous that it would take away the real anxieties.

"I never meant to break your heart." But break it he had, at least twice now.

Anya wants to believe him. The Dmitry she thought that she knew wouldn't hurt her like that. But maybe she's been wrong on which Dmitry she knew. She had heard rumours about him back in St Petersburg, that he was a man to know, a man who could get her out. What she had found had been an exasperating man, equal turns exciting and irritating, one that she had come to love. Then she had felt so betrayed learning he had done all of this for money, turned into a liar and had her trust betrayed.

He said he didn't take it and she believed him. She wanted to believe her heart hadn't steered her wrong. But this is the second time. It is hard to come back from repeated hurt.

Swallowing thickly, she nods slowly. "I didn't think you did, but it still happened," she says. "I missed you and I hated you all over again. I just don't get why. Why you avoided me, why you're here now. I could have used you three weeks ago."

Pointlessly she lets out a little laugh. "It was my birthday. The first one I remembered in years."

The thing is, Dmitry has been prepared to apologize, has rehearsed what he'll say a thousand times over in his head. Somehow, as vulnerable as that is, what she asks of him is even harder. How does he admit how much it hurts to see her and know she'll always be out of his reach? Even without Gleb, he's still a conman and she's still a princess. Their worlds should never have touched except for one hot summer day.

"It hurt...seeing you," he finally says. "I've never loved anyone the way I love you. And I blew it. I ruined everything. After that mess in the elevator, I thought you'd never want to speak to me again." He'd run off, buried himself in work, anything to avoid the confirmation that she hates him. Hated him.

"Three weeks..." By now, he knows the Romanov family tree as well as she does, thanks to Vlad's lessons. He knows the significance even before she says it. "I'm sorry. If I'd have been thinking." But maybe the problem is that he's been thinking too much.

Reaching over, he flicks the headphones off before their battery will die and then settles them more snugly around her neck. "It doesn't make up for anything but you should keep these. A late present." He can remember the last present he tried to give her, a doll that he foolishly purchased in Paris. She'd wanted nothing to do with it.

Hurt, angry and raw, muddled with the ache of sadness flares within her. It feels like she swallowed a hot coal, the pain burning down her throat. For the moment it has taken her words away, left them to grow hotter with each passing moment. Part of Anya wants to strike him, to throw him out of her house, to confirm his fears.

But another part of her cannot bring herself to do it. Oh, she's hurt and angry, upset in so many ways. That much is very true. But sending him away would confirm his suspicions. It would feel like giving Dmitry as terrible sort of victory. He took away her choice by hiding from her. She won't let that happen again.

"You couldn't know that if you didn't see me. You thought that before you came here," she points out, remembering how she had had to use Wanda to bring down his door. "And I wanted to see you then. If you love someone you don't run away from them, Dmitry. You don't waste time. There isn't enough of it."

That is why she had hunted Gleb down. Why she had waited for Dmitry to come to her before starting to lose hope. She couldn't always be the one to chase him down. It wasn't fair.

Solemnly she nods, a dry smile cracking across her face. "If you had been thinking, we would've had this conversation ages ago."

Her hands reach up to touch the headphones around her neck, feeling the weight of them. Without meaning to, her fingers brush against his. "But you worked for them. You were using them only a little while ago. I couldn't take something you care about."

Dmitry makes himself look her in the eye, tries to listen to the Anya in front of him now instead of the one he remembers in Paris. The one who'd looked at him in that moment and hated him, seen him as less than an insect to be crushed. That version of Anya is the one seared into his memories and fears, the one he fears will reappear the moment they get too close and he makes another mistake. But how does he say that?

He focuses on the easier thing to say first. Or tries to. His fingers feel the ghost of her touch. It's more than they've shared in weeks. It's more than he deserves.

"For the first time in my life, I'm making honest money," he says. "I can get another pair. You look like you need them more. At least for the next few days." Besides, he cares more about Anya than he does a shiny new toy. He hasn't done much to help her but if she can block out the fireworks then it's money well-spent.

There's no avoiding the other questions though, not if he ever wants to pray for a chance. Not a second chance. By now he's much further down the line.

"What you said to me in Paris? For you, that's old memories." He wonders, too, exactly how well Anya remembers her words. They're seared in his memory. "I'm still..."

God, this sounds even more pathetic in his head.

"I'm still scared that you'll say that to me again. That you'll hate me as much as you did that night."

Anya remembers that night. The excitement, the promise that had still lingered the air. How her grandmother refused to look at her, the pain flaring up hot and striking. Being turned away by the woman who was meant to love her, who was meant to be her new home. She had felt like a wounded animal, curling in on herself and striking out, still riding high on that anger at Dmitry and Vlad as she arrived in this city.

"These would have been helpful on Founders Day," she admits, mind still reeling as she slides the headphones off her neck. Looking at them, she wonders if she can see sense, getting a way out of this that won't cause more pain.

But that would be a coward's way. Anya is many things, but she is no longer afraid, no matter what shakes the fireworks give her.

"Are you? I'm proud of you. I always knew you were more than just a conman," she pauses, correcting herself. "Or I hoped you were."

Looking up at him she shakes her head. "I was hurt. You helped hurt me, my grandmother hurt me, and now you've hurt me again. But I don't hate you, Dmitry, I'm just sad and confused. I don't want to keep doing this. I don't want you to make a mistake and then run away. That isn't fair to either of us."

"Were there fireworks then too?" He'd just missed Founders Day, though Dmitry imagines he wouldn't have much enjoyed it. With a name like that, it sounds like the kind of thing that nets a state parade and mandatory attendance with a bayonet at his back. It seems an unlikely reality but he can't undo the associations.

Despite all this, the conversation, Dmitry has to smile. He's never thought of himself that way and the optimism is all Anya's. Truthfully, when he smooth talks customers, Dmitry still feels a little bit of a con anyway. It's just that Anya demands better of him and he feels like he should try, except that he keeps bungling it.

"It's not like I can run far," he says. Maybe he's managed to keep away but Darrow simply isn't that big. Eventually, while he's here, Gleb and Anya will always be around. And that's the trouble, isn't it?

"I'm so in love with you that it hurts and you already have him and..." And what? "I want you to be happy. I don't want to fight him. Not if it'll hurt you. So I stayed away but..." Well here they are.

"Yes, there were." That night had felt so vivid, taking her back to Ekaterinburg with such alarming detail that she hadn't been able to breath. The scent of the gunpowder from the fireworks, the smoke in the air, everything had been too much. How quickly something beautiful had been ruined by ghosts only she could see.

Tonight it has been different. Muffled, the walls and windows protecting against any smells, any noises that could sound like screams. Her body still shudders, the urge to slink away from it all followed by exhaustion. If it weren't for Dmitry being here, she would have already curled up in a ball to watch more Space Hospital and wait for Pushkin to come home.

"No, these trains won't take you anywhere," she agrees before what he says next hits her like wall. Something cold and angry flares up within her, a different sort of resentment mixed with the paranoia that can only come from living under the Bolsheviks. This is a more specific hurt though, that Dmitry hasn't listened to her. He came here, all concerned and plaintive eyes, but he's still being such a fool.

Pressing her lips into a line, she stares at him as she takes a step back. "Have who? Gleb?" she asks, almost accusingly. "No, Dmitry, I won’t be your reason to martyr yourself. The last time I saw you I pointed out that Gleb and I weren’t together. That none of us were together. I don't know if you noticed, but Gleb wouldn't even look at me when those doors opened. Who exactly would you be fighting?"

She lets out a little grunt of frustration, wanting to wring her hands, but reluctant to do anything that would cause damage to the headphones. Instead she settles for a petulant stamp of her foot. “You don't know what's happened. You didn't even try to know for almost a month. How can I trust you when you've done this to me twice? That's not love."

What a temper. He thinks it with his usual mix of apprehension and admiration. Dmitry's stuck his foot in his mouth enough times around her to know the signs of a tongue-lashing before her mouth opens. "I wasn't looking at Gleb. When everything was happening, all I was thinking about was you," he says, a plain unvarnished truth. It's not meant to be romantic. It's an admission of ignorance.

"I didn't think about if I was hurting him." What he means is, he didn't think about Gleb Vaganov as a person rather than part of a Bolshevik monolith. He's forgotten that Gleb is just a man, whose feelings and soul are as real as his own because Dmitry has been too busy thinking of him as an adversary.

"I'm not trying to martyr myself. I thought I was doing the right thing, for once." That doesn't change what it is or what Anya feels. "Everyone's always said love is about being ready to give everything up for the person you love to be happy, even if it hurts you." Dmitry knows love through sacrifice or not at all. He's seen it so many times in mothers who give up portions for babies, wives who shield husbands from bullets, fathers who stand in front of sons. He doesn't know how to love someone when there are no guns turned their way.

Dmitry exhales, looks away and then back at Anya. "But I haven't made you happy." How does he fix this?

Edited 2018-08-22 22:02 (UTC)

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Under the stars I awaken to the sound of a firebird [Anya, July 4]

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