A/N: Some scenes from Anastasia that don't quite make it to the kids-rated Disney Movie! One of my favorite movies that showed a cool, sassy, feminist woman find her way, and I don't think she would have let herself be crushing on Dimitri so hard without making a move. AU at first, but it doesn't really change anything.
Enjoy!
It starts on the Tascha.
They're dancing and she's swinging around in that blue dress that brings out the wild fire in her hair. She can't put her eyes on him, at first, scared she's going to misstep and ruin their dance, but eventually she finds familiarity in his calloused hands, direction in his motions, and she naturally tilts her head up, breathing out a relieved a smile. Her eyes meet his. He takes her breath away and she can't look for much longer, so they keep dancing, until they reach the end of the boat, and she clambers into him, a little hot (a little sweaty hot) from the twirling and a little hot (a little hot deep inside her) because his voice is low and his body is hard when she feels her soft tummy and supple breasts crash into him.
"You were good," he manages to get out, awkwardly clearing his throat and running a hand through his hair.
She blinks away her fluster, trying to think of anything but her flaming cheeks and one other part of her that is on fire. "That was fun," she settles to say, placing a hand on each of his shoulders to steady herself and looking into the distance, setting her eyes on the setting sun, to look at anything other than him, because he just took her breath away.
Seconds later, she begins to relocate her courage. "Not bad for my first time, huh?" she smirks.
His eyes widen, only for an instant, but she can't miss it. "What?" Dimitri stutters, "No, no, you were very good."
She takes her hands off his shoulders and places them on her waist, curtseying playfully with a little pop of her hip. "Thank you! I'm a quick learner." She chooses not to wink; instead she looks off to the side, and follows with, "It's so beautiful out here."
Dimitri takes a step forward. "You're – you are right," he agrees, although the pause he made at first makes her think he'd wanted to say something else.
She's brave and looks up at him and smiles. "Thank you for taking me out here, Dimitri," she says to him sincerely, her huge brown eyes meeting his own. She notices the little wrinkles forming along the lines that are supposed so show when he smiles, but also knows he smiles rarely, unless it's to smirk or tease. "Are you getting old? How old are you?" she asks him, honestly, bluntly.
"Um, what?" Dimitri asks, taken aback. "Not much older than you."
"No, you have to be," she insists. "You look so much older than me."
He looks down, shakes his head, and she sees something so indiscernible in his eyes that she somehow feels guilty for even bringing it up. "I promise you," he says.
She gulps.
He shags his hair out of the way and smirks, "Or maybe I am, maybe I'm so mature and experienced and that's why I'm taking this big baby with me across Europe."
Her jaw drops. She shoves him backwards with both arms, square in the chest, making a high-pitched noise of indignation, but he grabs her hands by the wrists and she's falling forward, onto him, again, and this time she's looking straight up into his eyes and he's looking down into hers, looking at her like she's precious and fragile and about to disappear any minute.
She inhales through parted lips, her eyes unmoving, but the sound of her gentle hiss snaps him out of his reverie and his arms tighten around her wrists and he begins to push her off.
She'll have none of it, pushing right back and protesting his denial of her, believing that he wants her just as much as she wants him because no one has ever looked at her like that before –
Before –
Before the flashback hits her and she sees a kitchen boy scurry her through a small tunnel, amidst the sound of crashes and explosions and panicked screams, a boy whose features were soft but whose hands felt course against her skin as he ushered her into the floor, whose eyes were deep and a little scared and beginning to show the vestiges of a hardened exterior.
And now –
And now he's right in front of her, only not as a little boy anymore, as a grown man with those hands and those eyes and that tortured expression of desire and wanting to do the right thing..
A hand comes up to her mouth. "It's you," she whispers. "You were the boy from the kitchen," and they both know the answer.
He can't nod, he can't even breathe, so he just stands there rigid and still as if he's waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Her eyes fill with tears, tears because she's on her way to meet her family and she is, in fact, the long lost Anastasia, but most importantly tears because she has with her whatever closest to the family that perished all those years ago. Him.
Her arm falls back to her side, her arm slowly creeping up to meet his. "Dimitri," she whispers when he flinches.
"Thank you," she says softly, the tears seeping into her voice. "You saved me, you saved me back then and you saved me again now."
"No," he says, roughly, "you saved yourself, you were a fighter and a survivor and when I found you in that audition and I didn't even believe – "
She cuts him off, laughing a little harshly but not bitterly, just hardened by the memory of her escape and insecurity and vulnerability, "that it was me? That I was alive?" She shakes her head, brushing her thumb along his knuckle. "It's me and somehow, you found me and you're taking me to meet my family. And you've kept me so, so safe." Her voice is laced with wonder. He could have done anything in the world he wanted to her, and he chose to teach her how to dance.
"How could I ever repay you, she asks?"
He smartly, "Let's get to your grandmother, and she'll thank me for you," but the coldness in his voice falls flat and his smirk doesn't meet his eyes, those same eyes that looked at her when he saved her life decades ago, and she knows he's trying to convince himself.
She touches his shoulder and follows the curve of his neck until her hand is nestled in the back of his hair, and she rushes out, "I have a different idea," in a moment of self-confidence and bravery, standing on her very tip-toes to kiss him.
He protests, pushing her off, telling her, "Anya, it's not right, I don't even – I'm not – we're not – you're a," but he's garbling over his words and still holding her with the hand that's not brushing through his hair, and the whole time his eyes are on her lips.
She kisses him again for a second, just so she can shut him up, and she tells him, "I was an orphan and you're a con-man but right now we're on this boat and soon we're going to have rules but right now we're in the middle of the sea, and I have been wanting to do that for a very long time."
"Have you ever kissed anyone before?" he asks, nothing but honest curiosity in his voice.
She's taken aback, offended. "Why?"
"Nothing, it's just, I don't want to – I don't want to ruin it for you."
She's kissed a boy before. One, in the orphanage. But she has a better answer to give him. "You'll teach me," she breathes, lost in his scent and smell and the tremble in his hands.
He makes a small noise of surrender, like he's saying yes and thank you and Anya all at once, and pulls her into him, kissing her. Hard.
She has a nightmare that he mistakes for a suicide attempt. Once she's cried on his shoulder and he rocks her back to sleep, cocooning her in his arms, she feels him against her. She wants so badly to tell him she knows, that she wants what he wants to give her, but she doesn't know how to say it, how to stop the words from getting stuck in her throat.
After all, she's taken her shirt off and she's let him touch her, on her chest, and somewhere else where she still doesn't feel womanly enough to call it by name, only knowing it by the waves of pleasure his touches brought her. He'd asked to taste her, and she knew enough to piece together what it meant, but embarrassment flooded her veins and she'd been enable to even muster out a word. Dimitri didn't push her – he just began to lick his fingers once he'd finished her.
It was a while before he let her touch him. She had to beg and promise that she wanted to because she wanted him, not because she felt like she had to, promise it wouldn't corrupt her, promise if her crown meant she couldn't have him then she didn't want it all.
He's been a busy man while she was an orphan, so she didn't know what to do at first, but he taught her, with gentle instructions and moans and hisses into her mouth as he kissed her.
But now, as she feels him hard against as he slowly drifts to sleep, she's biting her lip and creasing her forehead as she thinks about why he hadn't wanted to go further. She wanted to, so badly, but he'd said something about how she'd regret doing it with a conman when it was one day time to explain it to her prince and incredulously denied that she'd ever have to do such a thing but he just ruefully shook his head and told her soon she would see.
And so she dropped it. The trip was almost over, and if he was right and it was their time coming to an end as well, she'd take as much of him as possible in whatever form he was willing
to give.
The shaky candle light looks reflects off three thick, harsh lines against his chest, she notices. And when he turns around to retrieve a blanket that had fallen to the floor, she notices more of the same scars littering his back. As soon as her hands make contact with the rugged, shiny skin, he violently jerks away.
"Get your hand away from that," he spits, in a tone so sharp and cold she's taken aback physically,
He notices and runs a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean – I didn't mean to scare you, or – you can touch them if you want," he says with resignation. She shakes her head. "I just – they weren't fun to get, you know?"
She nods communicatively and reaches for his hand, pulling him closer to her. "I understand," she says softly. She smiles playfully. "Luckily there's more of you to touch."
When Dimitri told her she looked beautiful at the opera ball, his hand brushed slightly against hers and she felt her chest tighten, knowing she was now in a place where she couldn't touch him, claim him proudly as the man who kept her so steady.
When they were seated, his hand slivered up her thigh, through the slit in her gown. Both their eyes were fixated on the play, straight ahead.
She inhaled sharply, clasping her hand against his knee. She felt his body stiffen through the black – so handsome – trousers he wore. She stiffened too, shifting her so slightly to look at him through the corner of her eye.
He looked at her like he looked at her the first time they danced on the Tascha. Deeply, a little fearfully, holding on dearly until he inevitably lost her.
And the people clapped and the spell was over.
She didn't know what possessed her to hit him. He had made her livid, and yet she knew there was no excuse – not even growing up in an orphanage where fists were raised sometimes before the voices were. And although she knows she hadn't hurt him, although she's heard stories of things that were bad, the thought that she bore any resemblance to the snakes who ran the orphanage made her stomach turn.
When she finds him she throws her arms around his neck, sobbing and kissing his cheek frantically – which, in his shocked stupor – he lets her, arms slack at his sides.
"I'm so sorry," she sobs, through tears and a chest heaving so forcefully she holds the table to keep from doubling over. And sees the damage on his face, cuts and bruises no doubt left there by her grandmother's body guards, and a new wave of despair overtakes her. Is this the life he could look forward to?
He gathers her in his arms, whispering "shhhh" to her over and over, kissing her on the temple, on the side of her check, holding her face between his hands. "It's alright," he whispers. And smirks, "You don't carry that mighty of a punch, Anya."
She breaks out of his grasp, crying desperately, "that's not the point. That's what they did to me, and I did it to you." Wiping her eyes, trying to find balance amidst her erratic breathing, she sees him swallow. His mouth gaped, and he reached for her again.
"Anya, Anya, Anya, come here," he croons. "It's okay, Anya, it's okay." She sniffles in his arms. "Don't worry about me, Anya. You didn't even do the worst of it."
She wipes her nose, rather ungraciously, on her gloved hand. "No one will ever touch you again," she vows quietly, seething.
He chuckles, but she shakes her head against his chest. "I'm serious. I will never do that again," she promises quietly. "I'm not going to become a person that hits people." She shudders, and instantly she feels his arms tighten around her protectively. Her voice breaks again. "Can you ever forgive me?"
He presses his lips to the top of her head and mumbles. "Done."
That night, after she's convinced him to stay, she brings up the dreadful possibility that it might be one of their last nights together, for a while, and so as she's unbuttoning his shirt and trailing kisses down his chest, she looks up at him with a gaze so sultry and loving that he nearly buckles under her touch.
And she hands him another pillow, as if to tell him, get comfortable because it might be a while.
And that night, he lets her kiss him all the way down and when he's come and she's done she slowly licks her lips, dragging her tongue across every last drop and the sight is enough to make him want to come again, but not before he nestles his hand in her hair and draws her into him, tasting himself on her tongue.
"Your turn," he whispers to her, flipping her to her side and she almost blanches again, keeping her legs shut with an almost devilish strength. He looks up at her questioningly, propping up an eyebrow.
She gulps and grips the mattress sheets and closes her eyes as she readies herself to feel his cool tongue on her hot center, but when she does holy fuck it's amazing and soon her hands are gripping his hair and his name is falling off her lips like it was heaven's final prayer, and she's telling him more more more until the breathe is taken from her body and the only last thing keeping her on this earth are his hands on her stomach, and her jello'ed legs frame Dimitri as he crawls up barely enough to rest his face against her stomach. They breathe together, finding themselves in each other, and she motions for him to come up, to lay with her, and she's resting her forehead against his and the words come out before she can stop them.
"I love –" and she can't speak again, until she clears her throat and blinks furiously, "I loved it. Thank you."
He closes his eyes and inhales deeply, almost as if he's trying to take in every last scent of her. "You're welcome."
"You're going to regret this, Anya, I swear to you," he says, pulling at his hair, frustrated.
"Why!" she yells at him, practically stomping her foot. "What is the difference, Dimitri? We've done everything but this, and I want –"
"What do you want, Anya?" he snaps, finally turning around to face her. His arms outstretch at his sides, showing his frustration. "It's all about what you want, all the time, but you can't listen to this one simple thing."
She crosses her arms over her chest. "Don't get in my face like that, Dimitri. No one will have to know."
He pauses, looking right at her. "We're not going to be each other's dirty little secret, Anya," he says quietly.
She swallows the lump in her throat, knowing he's right, that they both deserve better than midnight trysts made urgent by their inevitable separation. "You're right," she says softly. "It shouldn't make a difference, though."
He holds her hand, handling it gently as he turns it over to trace the lines in her palm. He agrees, eyes downcast, and kisses her palm, and she places against his jawline and strokes his cheek. "I don't know what to do," she says thickly. Her hand nestles in his hair, bringing him closer. She feels his breath on her lips.
"I don't want to lose you," she whispers in a trembling, raw voice, as their foreheads touch.
She practically feels him swallow. "Not yet," he placates her, gruffly, and instead of arguing with him about what is that supposed to mean? she lets herself be lost in his lips, in the taste of his mouth and the feel of his tongue and the kisses he peppers down her neck.
Later, she's thanking him again, holding on to him as tightly as she can because she knows not yet means soon.
He can only deny it for so long, she'd presumed, and she was right.
She's pressed up against a wall, him on the other side, holding her wrists above her head and he's almost growling at her, "I need to see this dress on the floor," as he's biting and kissing her jaw.
And she thinks that maybe hearing her family talk about her future as a princess was enough to shake him out of his stupor of nobility and honor and the distance they forced him to keep from her.
She smiles broadly against his lips, grinning so widely their teeth clank, moaning softly into the darkness around them as he starts sucking on the skin right under her ear. "Mine," he whispers, before biting her again.
"Yours," she pants, digging her nails into his back, rubbing herself against him where it feels so so good. He pulls back to look at her, and she looks at him, and neither of them say anything but she tells him what to do and then her legs are wrapped around him and he's carrying her to the bed.
"Wait, wait, wait, wait," she rushes out, just as he's about to lay her on her back, and he immediately steps away, raising his hands by his head as if to prove to her he's stopped.
"Okay," he breathes, offering a gentle smile as he clears his throat. "We can stop." And although he'd never show his disappointment to her because he thinks she won't sleep with him, Anya sees the resignation cloud his eyes.
"Not for long," she promises playfully, turning her back to him so she can offer him the buttons on the back of her slinky dress. "Maybe we'd want to get these out of the way first?"
Instantly she feels his nimble fingers on her back, and smirks slightly to herself, conscious of how much he wants her and how empowered it makes her feel. He pushes the dress off her shoulders and down her arms, touching her reverently. She sucks in a breath of air, turning her body to face his and sees his face flush as he looks down at her chest.
He cups one of her tits with his hands, eyes snapping to hers questioningly. She nods, giving him permission to continue, and cannot keep her hands to herself as she climbs on top of him, crawling with him to the headboard and pushing him against a pillow as she unbuttons his shirt.
Her gaze travels across every inch – his tight stomach, the copper hairs pricking his chest. She licks her lips and before she can stop herself, finds herself planting wet kisses on the three white scars glistening in the moonlight. He lets her, inhaling sharply and cupping her hair with his hand.
He brings her back up to kiss him and before she knows it she's using her legs to slide the dress off of her, because she knows he won't, and she's sitting before him, bare except for her panties.
"Anya," he forces out gruffly, "Anya I can't – "
"It's okay," she says gently. "If you don't want to, it's alright. I just – I just want to be with you, like this, without these." She pushes her dress off the bed for emphasis.
He swallows thickly. "Alright."
And she's buttoning his trousers and taking off his socks and she sees him and feels him and isn't sure if she's only imagining him quiver under her gaze. "You're so beautiful," he murmurs, pulling her close once again, and they're chest to chest and skin to skin, basking in each others' warmness.
"Dimitri," she whimpers, "please," stroking the taught muscle of his arm.
He swallows, again, hard. "You're going to regret. I don't want to do that to you." And yet, he brings up a finger, tweaking her nipple.
"Please," she says again, lying next to him on her back and writhing under his touch. "Please, please, please, more," she begs in a moan, jerking up only to meet his hand exactly where she wants it.
She hisses, rolling her eyes right before she can't keep them open any longer. "Please."
And he can't deny her any longer.
He's rolling on top of her, pulling down her last garment and she's pulling down his, her heart the the blood in her veins both suddenly pounding right into her ears. She props herself up on her elbows, legs wide open, taking in his beautiful body and his every movement with wide, eager eyes.
"You're beautiful too," she offers softly.
He looks at her and chuckles, but he can't hide the redness on his face nor the quirk his lips gave when she said it. "My line."
She reaches out to take his hand, and suddenly they're serious again as the space between them diminishes and he lowers himself onto her. "You're sure?" he breathes, rubbing and stroking her and going inside of her with his hand to make sure she's ready, and oh boy she is.
"Yes," she whispers.
And suddenly they're serious again, and she's trembling under his touch, nerves and anticipation making her flutter. He warns her in a low, rough voice, plagued with guilt, that it will hurt, and it does, but he wipes the lone tear that leaks out the corner of her eye away with a touch so tender it makes her want to cry all over again, and soon the pain is replaced with something much, much, better that has her bucking her hips in a rhythm that matches his, moaning out name like she did the first time he kissed her.
"Anya," he breathes, kissing her, speeding up, his breath catching in his throat, repeating her name like litany. She catches him in her mouth, holding him tightly when she feels him gasp and stiffen and jerk out of her, before she feels his hotness against her leg. He melts into her arms, resting his neck in the crook of her shoulder, clutching her to him, as he steadies his garbled breathing.
Toying with his soft hair, she swallows, lost in the haze of sex and love and closeness she never thought was possible but still aching with desire for him, on the brink.
"Dimitri," she whispers thickly, thinking it's over but deeply satisfied with the intimacy they shared. "Thank you."
She feels him smile against her chest. "Don't thank me yet. Just give me a minute."
She chuckles, but doesn't know exactly what he means until a few more moments pass and she feels his hand crawl to her core once more, stroking and rubbing the way he's learned that takes her higher. She grips him with one hand, the other hand tangled in the bed sheet, as her legs tighten and her hip buckles and she's taken to that other world where the only thing she can feel are the waves of pleasure ebbing in her bones. When her eyes flutter open, she sees him looking at her, eyes upturned to the outline of her lips and the tip of her nose and the final panting breath that escapes her is enough to break his trance and bring his eyes up to hers.
He doesn't say anything, only lets out a long, long breath that lets her know this is what he had wanted for her – not just to be in her, but to be with her, to bring her the pleasure that they both needed – and it's enough to cause her chest to tighten and her heart to splinter with something she couldn't pinpoint, exactly.
So she breaks the silence: "Was this what you were holding out on me?"
She doesn't really hear him chuckle, but she feels it against her body in the position they still lay. "I'm glad it didn't disappoint."
She laughs as well, and they shift so that he cuddles her, draping his hand over her soft tummy. "I'm never going to regret that." She turns so he can see her smirk. "Especially not if we keep doing it."
And he joins in her conviviality, unable to let dread taint the glow of their happiness. "Deal."
The only thing clouding the heartbreak his betrayal caused was the red hot anger she'd felt with herself, her stupidity, gullibility. But she could only hope to blink away the tears, to ignore the pit of lead in her stomach, only to see him bow to her – a sight that was particularly gut-wrenching.
She had to keep from visibly gasping at the sight of the man she'd though she lov- no, not that, not anymore,prostrating himself to her. But she was after all, the princess, and he was just the ex-con, now starting over – with the money his grandmother paid him, for bringing Anya home – and the thought that she was just his commission for a job well done made her sick.
So she doesn't follow him. She watches him leave for the last time, wishing she felt bitter and that he'd been right all along, that she'd regret it all, so hate could replace the emptiness in her heart.
When her grandmother tells her the truth, her heart drops into a dreadful pit in her stomach, because of course noble "princesses don't marry kitchen boys" Dimitri would have set her free of him.
And she knows what she has to do. But it's him who finds her, when she's nearly dangling off a cliff. When it's over, she's holding him, dropping kisses everywhere she can find, onto his face and skin and body that has become so warm and familiar.
She sobs out his name, draping her body across his chest, crying that she loves him over and over and over. And when he comes to, she's convinced it's a miracle, that he was dead and gone forever after saving her again – a third time – after she'd believed the very worst of him when she'd thought he left her of his own choosing.
"I thought you were gone," she sobbed into his chest, "I know you didn't take the money, and I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry for thinking you did –"
"Shhhh," he whispers, gasping sharply from the pain in his ribs, "It's alright. I'd meant for you to believe it."
"But you're better than that," she protested, wiping away her tears, "you're so much better than that and you're not just a kitchen boy or a conman but I bought that shallow, stupid lie as if you weren't the greatest man I've ever met, and I'm so – "
He cuts her off again, shaking his head, "Anya, stop," he says harshly. "I don't wa – I can't stay here. You're delusional if you see a future together."
"Why?" she demands quietly. "Don't you want me?" They both know he does, but she needs to hear him say it.
"Of course I do," he breathes, shifting to ease the pain, "but that's not the only thing that matters. What matters is that you find someone for your future, someone who's good – "
"Stop it," she cuts him off, her voice reaching a higher pitch as she goes closer to him. She pulls down his hand from his hair, and says gently, "listen to me, Dimitri. I'm a grown-up. I can make the decisions I need to make about my future. And I know that it's you I want in it, Dimitri, I want – I'm not–" the words swallow themselves as she tries to tell him. Finally, she says, "all I want is my freedom and to be happy and those are both things I have with you."
He takes in a breath of air, looking at her warmly and tenderly and deeply. "How?"
She takes his face in her hands. "You're smart and exciting and you've saved my life – three times? – so at least I won't have to worry ever about that, and you're kind and giving and generous and you believe in me." She swallows. "I'm so scared I'll end up with someone who won't let me live, who will make me a trophy." She closes her eyes, terrified at the possibility. "I know of who wants to marry me. I hate them all." She shudders, but collects himself and grins at him. He's looking at her intently, like he can't believe the words. "I don't want to get married for a very, very long time. I just want to keep being. With you. Won't you take my hand in that?"
And the blood rushes through her, waves of relief overpowering her, as he pulls her in close and chokes out her name. "God, yes, yes, Anya, yes, I'll do anything with you, I just needed – I just needed to know it's what you wanted and not some sick sense of gratitude or debt you need to repay, and you need to know that this is who you're getting – no one proper, with a name or a title or anything –"
She kisses him, breathing into his mouth. "It's enough. You're so much more than enough."
He's nodding against her face and kissing her again and wrapping his arms around her as much as they'll go and she's trying to take him in, take in the feel of his hair under her finders, the skin under his torn shirt, the tangy taste of blood on his tongue.
"God, I love you," he breathes into her mouth, stiffening immediately once they both realize the words. "Shit," he stumbles, pulling away, "I didn't mean –"
She doesn't even respond, she just follows his body enough to close the space he just created and silences him with her kisses, "I love you," she murmurs, "I love you, I love you, I love you," and she repeats it until he surrenders into her kiss and her arms and his love for her and he says it back again, and she says it to him, and they both believe it.