I know I said I'd update on time but I think the extra wait time was worth it for this one. ;)
Update next weekend.
Some ethnographers accidentally find out who they really want to 'be' in their encounters with 'others', and sometimes the person they want to be is not the ethnographer, but a member of the group. . . . The ethnographic manner of being with people is to find a way to get close, but not so close that one can't step back. . . . While that is a choice for ethnographers to make, 'going native' is not ethnography.
— Raymond Madden, Being Ethnographic: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Ethnography (2010)
Viktoria didn't want to get ready at her house; her friend, Marina, had a birthday coming up after Viktoria would be going back to school, and her hometown friend group decided to go out while she was still in town, so everyone was gathering at Marina's before heading out.
"What's the English word, like the party before you go to the club?" Viktoria asked, debating between two different eyebrow pencils. She pronounced it kloob, her accent thickening over the word.
"Pregame?" Rose supplied, unsure if that was the word Viktoria was looking for.
"Yes!" Viktoria chose the darker pencil and threw it in the bag she'd spent the past half hour packing. "Are you sure you want to come tonight? You don't seem like the partying type. I don't want to push you into anything you don't want to do."
"On the contrary," Rose said towards the ceiling from where she was sprawled out on Viktoria's air mattress, "I partied my way through high school like alcohol was going out of style."
"Even with all the running away?"
Rose nodded. "Sometimes Lissa needed more than usual for feedings, so we actually did try to go find people at parties. I'm sure had I stayed at St. Vladimir's, I would've done more than minor destruction of property."
"You just got all uptight and mature when your best friend became Queen," Viktoria guessed, and Rose nodded.
"I got serious my senior year. I had to. I partied a bit while she was in college, mostly just stuff we got invited to. She rushed a sorority and ended up turning down her bid, but the spirit charisma stuff made sure we got invited back to stuff all four years." Rose shrugged. "Mostly I just get drunk with my friends when I'm off duty now. I've never really done the whole club thing."
"Well, let's change that," Viktoria said, zipping the bag shut. "Davai." C'mon, let's go.
Marina's house was just as nondescript as everyone else's in Baia, with only several cars parked on the paved road outside giving away that anything was going on. Inside, everyone greeted Viktoria like a long lost friend despite being at Polina Andropova's New Year's party not that long ago, and Rose waded through a barrage of cheek kisses and name introductions before she elbowed Viktoria to get her attention.
"You were at Polina's last week?" Rose asked.
"Yes," Viktoria said distractedly, pulling out the leggings and drapey t-shirt Rose had chosen for the night as they followed Marina into her bedroom. "Why?"
"I didn't see you there. I thought you were with Karolina and them all night."
"I showed up after I took Aloysha home," she said. And then, almost irritated, she added, "I said earlier I was a good mother, didn't I?" She dropped the bag on the floor by the bedroom door and started undressing, pausing in the middle of switching bras when realization dawned across her face. "Wait, you were there? Why?"
"Dimitri wanted to talk to Anton," Rose said, and suddenly the music was shut off completely with half a dozen pairs of eyes trained on them.
"Mitya was at your party, Polya?" someone asked one of the other girls — Polina, most likely — who was in the middle of putting on makeup. "Why the fuck didn't you tell me?"
"I had no clue," Polina said, arching an eyebrow at the girl over her compact. "I just found out right now, Sofiya, same as you. Don't bitch at me."
Rose met Polina's assessing look, straightening her shoulders when Polina's eyebrow inched higher before the girl turned back to her task at hand.
"How is he, Vika?" Sofiya asked. Marina, leaned in close to her vanity mirror, rolled her eyes before returning to brushing on mascara.
"Spoken for," Viktoria teased, adjusting her dress in a second mirror, this one hanging on the back of Marina's door, and she grinned when a collective gasp went through the room.
"What?" Polina in particular looked like she'd been run over by a truck. "Who the fuck is it?"
"Now why would I just tell you?" Viktoria asked, throwing a smirk over her shoulder.
"Do you know who it is?" Another girl, standing by the window and lighting up a cigarette, directed her question at Rose, who shrugged and shook her head. Why was Viktoria not telling them it was her?
"Why would she know, Nastia?" Marina asked.
"She's the American girl Vika's family is hosting," Anastasia said, nodding towards Rose.
The third, still unnamed girl, who was seated on the bed and curling Polina's hair, scoffed. "Mitya's so quiet, though, I don't think anyone knows what really goes on with him."
"What's she like?" Sofiya asked Viktoria, jealousy evaporating into wonder.
"How'd you describe her, Rose?" Viktoria asked.
Rose, for her part, was still confused, and she shrugged again, not wanting to cryptically talk about herself. "I don't think I'd be a good judge of that."
"Is she hot?" Polina asked, shutting her compact. Her makeup was just as thick as everyone else's; Rose was grateful she'd opted out of letting Viktoria do her face for the night.
"Definitely a ten out of ten," Viktoria said, and a couple of ooh's echoed.
"Good," Polina said definitively, making Rose wonder why the girl cared so much. "After the last one, he deserves the best."
"Oh, this girl is definitely it," Viktoria said, shaking her head when Rose shot her a what the fuck look. Where had the woman supporting her to break things off this morning gone?
"Is it anyone we know?" Anastasia asked, blowing smoke out the window. Everyone in the room seemed completely oblivious to the negative temperature outside.
"Maybe. And that's all I'm saying!" Viktoria added when more questions started to erupt. "I didn't show up to gossip about my brother. This is Marina's night."
Marina looked thrilled that the conversation was shifting back to her, and as the room dissolved into Russian, Rose lightly kicked Viktoria in the ankle.
"What happened to 'you should definitely talk to him tomorrow'?" Rose hissed in the girl's ear.
"I don't have anything else to offer right now," Viktoria said, suddenly looking tired. She glanced at the women behind her. "Besides, do you want five strangers in your face asking you how good he is in bed?"
"Point taken," Rose said, sagging against the door next to the mirror Viktoria was using. She may have been working — really, this night was probably the biggest break she'd had in her entire assignment — but the sad, tired part of her was beginning to realize that forgetting about her problems for a little while could be its own kind of relief. "Isn't this the part where the alcohol comes out?"
"Here," Marina said, handing Rose a half-finished bottle of vodka. "Drink up. Those heels look like they're gonna hurt."
They were the same shoes she'd worn on New Year's. "Yeah, they do," Rose said, and when the first slide of vodka hit the back of her throat, she decided that fuck it, if the group she was with was going to have a good time, she might as well, too. Here was an opportunity focus on herself, she'd be damned if she wasn't going to capitalize on it.
She was exhausted — exhausted of letting others dictate how to live her life, exhausted of always trying to please Lissa and do what was best for her, exhausted of everything. Maybe it was time to put responsibility on the back burner for the first time in over five years and really go all out.
Besides, everyone else was going to get drunk and dance and forget about their own lives for a few hours. Joining in would be participant-observation at its most immersed.
It was nearly midnight by the time the group got Temno, a renovated warehouse-turned-club on the edge of town, and Rose was just tipsy enough that her earlier unease about going into a blood whore den could easily be ignored in favor of following the group make a beeline for the bar. Sofiya was the first to get a bartender's attention, and proceeded to open a tab — "David's covering tonight," she explained without clarifying who David was — and promptly order two rounds of something bronze and three rounds of something clear since Marina was turning 23.
It was loud inside the club — a remixed song Rose recognized playing on the radio in the States the previous summer blared through the space, heavy bass thumping in her chest. The walls were lit up blue from the bottom and there was a dazzling light and laser display on the stage where the DJ was set up; bodies — dhampir girls and Moroi men — crowded everywhere, though the seven of them had pushed enough people out of the way to form a comfortable semicircle at the bar along one of the side walls. It obnoxious and ridiculous and if Rose didn't look towards the dark corners, she could pretend it was just any other club.
She didn't know any of the girls save Viktoria, but she quickly found herself not caring. At all the parties she'd gone to in her life, Lissa has been by her side and her main priority. Drinking and dancing came second. Enjoying herself came second. The freedom she had in that moment, standing in a dhampir club in the middle of Russia, was as intoxicating as the mojito someone pressed into her hands after the rounds of shots had been finished off. Here, she could get plastered and dance with whomever she wanted. There was no one to look out for except herself. She almost didn't know what to do with herself.
A couple of Moroi guys showed up when Rose was halfway through her drink, and Viktoria lit up when she saw them.
"Rolan!" she shouted, throwing her arms around one of them, her drink nearly sploshing out of the glass. Another of them pointed at Anastasia, who pointed back, laughed, and dragged him away.
"Who's the friend?" Rolan asked, shouting into Viktoria's ear to be heard. He was looking at Rose.
"This is Rose!" Viktoria pulled away from her embrace with Rolan to throw an arm around Rose's neck, a grin drunkenly stretching her face.
"She's the American," Polina added, equally as loud. Even with heightened hearing, it was necessary to yell to be heard.
Drunk and unable to stop herself, Rose asked, "Do I have a reputation or something?"
"You do," Marina said, leaned against the bar next to Rose and playing the ends of Rose's hair. Rose was distantly aware that the gentle tugs of Marina's fingers felt good.
"Nice to meet you," Rolan shouted, offering a hand that Rose shook hard. Rolan indicated his remaining friend. "This is Sergey."
Sergey reminded her of Jesse Zeklos with his shaggy hair and lazy smirk, except . . . no, he was more like Adrian. His hair was too brown to pass for Jesse's. She smiled at the guy absently as she stood there awkwardly for a moment, still trying to figure out which ex-fling Sergey resembled.
"Katenka wants to dance," Polina announced with a blank face, reaching around Viktoria to dump two empty glasses on the bar, and jolting Rose out of her thoughts in the process. She and the third girl disappeared into the crowd.
"What's going on between them?" Marina asked Sofiya.
Sofiya shook her head, watching the two girls weave through the throng on the dance floor with a fond look. "I don't know. I hope Yekaterina gets her shit together. Polina, too, but it's Yekaterina I worry about more."
Viktoria and Rolan, meanwhile, had taken to making out against the bar. Sergey saw Rose's glance and shook his head. To the three left, he asked, "Dance floor?"
Sofiya held up her finger and turned to the bartender to order a round of tequila.
"I hate when you insist on mixing liquors," Marina whined, but still she dutifully held out her hand for the shot.
"Do you want Danya to fuck you tonight or no?" Sofiya asked.
Marina took the shot glass from her friend. "Of course I do."
"Then drink the tequila, because your clothes are going to stay on otherwise."
Rose felt like she was watching herself from afar as she licked the salt off her hand in time with the other three, tossed back the tequila, and bit into a lime wedge. This wasn't who she was, not really, and for half a second she wanted to leave, to go back to the Belikov house and crawl into Dimitri's arms and listen to him talk about whatever was on his mind while she worried about how bad her hangover would be in the morning. But then, when she turned to put the shot glass back on the bar to be bussed away, she saw Alex on the other side, mixing a drink and staring at her like she'd grown fangs.
"This is the club you bartend at?" Rose asked as she leaned across the bar, dumbfounded through her alcohol swirl.
Alex nodded, still eyeing her warily. "What are you doing here?" he shouted in her ear, also leaning across the bar so she could hear him.
She looked around wildly for Viktoria, but the girl had disappeared. Rolan, too. She wondered where they went, not wanting to admit to herself what was probably going on between them.
"Vika brought her," Marina supplied, leaning across the bar next to Rose.
Alex didn't look placated. "This is the girl's night my zolovka insisted you attend?"
Rose shrugged. What Viktoria told her she should do wasn't of importance to her. It was a carefree night. In any event, she was too far gone to really care about Alex's opinion of his future sister-in-law.
"Come, Rose, we're dancing!" Marina shouted, gently tugging on Rose's arm. "Poka, Alex!"
Rose was sandwiched between the two girls, holding onto Marina's shoulder as they pushed through people to get to the center of the room, with Sergey taking up the rear. Rose caught the briefest of glimpses of Viktoria and Rolan in the crowd, pressed close together, but she didn't have the attention span to register much else.
After puberty hit, rounding her hips and breasts in ways Moroi girls could only wish for, Rose hadn't tried to hide how she looked. There'd been a time when she thrived on the way guys would openly stare, Moroi and dhampir alike. The need for public displays of interest had lessened after she graduated high school and her desires changed — she wanted feelings and emotions, preferred real dates over cheap, shallow advances.
Adrian had once told her that a person's true self came out when they were drunk, because the masks and fronts people put on slipped away when alcohol hit their system. Booze makes you slippery, he'd said. You can't hide yourself when you lose control. It'd been during one of the many times Rose hid out in his room after the attack on the academy, and he'd followed up his wisdom by offering her another swig of his whiskey with a meaningless eyebrow waggle.
She'd taken a hearty sip and flipped him off. It felt like a lifetime ago.
And so as hours slipped by, the four stuck together, drifting off the dance floor for more drinks and ambling back on when they finished. Alex always seemed around to serve them, keeping a close eye on Rose. She didn't appreciate being watched, and said as much during a bathroom break with Marina.
The birthday girl shrugged as she reapplied her lipstick. "I think it's sweet. He does the same with Vika. You're basically a sister to him now."
"I wish he wouldn't," Rose slurred. She crossed her arms over his chest. "I don't want him, like, reporting back to Dimitri. I'm a grown woman."
Marina stopped mid-swipe and eyed Rose. "I thought it was you."
"What?"
"The girl Vika was talking about. Polina mentioned it to me on our way here." Marina closed her lipstick and stuck the capped tube back in her bra, touching up the corners of her mouth with her little finger. "You're his type."
"He has a type?"
"Mm. Strong. Bold. Doesn't give too many fucks."
If Rose wanted three ways to describe herself, it'd be that.
"The last girl, she cared too much. He couldn't handle it." Marina smiled, reaching out to pet Rose's hair for the billionth time that night. "You have really great hair, by the way."
Rose wanted to talk more about this last ex-girlfriend of his that kept cropping up. Rose was fairly certain she'd heard her referred to as The Bitch a couple of times by different people, but never in his company, and curious was an understatement on how she felt about the topic of conversation.
Unfortunately, her alcohol-drunk brain was more concerned with the compliment on her hair. "Thaaaanks," Rose drawled, checking her reflection in the mirror and running her hands through the soft waves Yekaterina had insisted on doing for her earlier, claiming superior skill with a curling iron than anyone else among her friends.
God, she was drunk. But she felt relaxed, and the ever-present tension in her shoulders had melted away countless drinks and songs and hours ago. She loved it. She felt as alive and animated as she looked, even if standing in place was difficult.
"Seriously." Marina was holding up on her own thin hair for comparison, forcing Rose to drift back into reality. "You have no idea how lucky you are to have it."
Outside, Sofiya was leaned against the wall, and said something that made Marina roll her eyes as she pulled her phone out of bra, glancing at the time. "I wanted to do this earlier before everyone split up, but now works, too." She pulled the other two close and Rose rested her head on Sofiya's shoulder as Marina took a selfie of them standing in the hallway.
It turned out great, as all drunken selfies do, but a pang of homesickness hit Rose when she couldn't help but compare it to photos she and Lissa had taken and how much better she would feel staring back at the faces of people she actually truly knew.
Back on the dance floor, Sergey had been joined by Viktoria, who shouted updates to everyone individually: Rolan was off getting more drinks, Anastasia had left with her boyfriend, and she hadn't seen Yekaterina or Polina in a while. Rose just nodded her understanding, her eyes catching Sergey's across the group, and when he pulled her in close by her waist, she drooped into his embrace.
"You're gorgeous," he said into her ear and she shivered, distantly aware of close his mouth was to her neck. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend she was younger again, still a novice in school without any real responsibility. Picking up on her response, he asked, "Want some air?"
She nodded, his heat overwhelming her, and she slid her hand into his as he led them off the dance floor. She didn't look back to see everyone else's reactions. Tonight was about caring as little as possible, and she was wasted enough that her homesickness won out over rational thought.
"Air" was one of the couches littering the back of the club, and Rose was with it enough to feel relieved that the dark corner he led her to was as secluded as she'd originally thought.
"You don't usually do this," he said as she sat down next to him, legs curled under her. The world tilted happily as she met his hazel-green eyes.
Not enough like Adrian. Maybe a little like Jesse. Did Jesse have blue eyes? (Lissa does.)
"What gave it away?" she asked, able to not shout as loud as down on the dance floor.
"You keep looking at the entrance, like you're planning to escape."
"Maybe I'm just waiting for someone."
Where did that come from?
"Oh?" Sergey rested an arm on the back of the couch they'd claimed, fingers playing with the collar of her shirt and occasionally brushing her neck. "Did you leave someone at home?"
Had she? Was Dimitri a someone? "No," she said. No fucks given. She wasn't his girlfriend nor his exclusively. They hadn't had that conversation.
Some part of her brain told her that was a good train of thought, that it would be easier to separate herself from him if she wasn't attached anymore than she already was.
"You sure?" Sergey was looking at her seriously.
"Dead sure," she slurred and then giggled, leaning into him. "You look like a guy I was into in high school."
"Yeah? Was he any good?"
Rose felt a terrible thrill shoot through her as she remembered the way Jesse had bit into her neck, the overwhelming pleasure in her memory sparking that itch from earlier. "He was an idiot. I'm certain you're better."
Sergey just grinned.
"For one, you're a better kisser."
"That's odd of you to say considering you've never kissed me."
To prove him wrong, she surged forward, mouth and teeth clashing against his. It was warm and pleasant, like any of the dozens of times she'd made out with Adrian, but it paled in comparison to the electric power that coursed through her when she kissed Dimitri.
"Now I have," she said when she pulled away.
"You are the most unusual woman I've ever met."
She shrugged and leaned in again. "I once put ketchup on a taco," she said, not sure why that random factoid came out of her mouth.
Sergey looked ready to eat her alive. "Good thing you're gorgeous."
This is what life could be like if she ended things with Dimitri, she mused as she kissed Sergey again, hands braced on his shoulders as she flung a leg over his and straddled his hips. It certainly made more sense for her to be experiencing this than getting involved with him for her assignment.
Or so the alcohol told her. It was hard to tell what was drunk logic or Rose-avoiding-scary-feelings logic. Flings were easier than admitting she was head over heels for someone. Friends stayed by your side. Relationships always ended unless you got hitched, and she didn't believe in marriage.
"I'm not fucking you," she said, coming up for air.
"I know," Sergey replied, eyes fixed on her throat. "But would you . . . ?"
This was it. She could get off his lap and walk away, go get a drink or find the girls on the floor. She didn't have to succumb to a years-old desire. But the memory of fading out, high on endorphins, hit her like a bullet. Lissa, Jesse, the near-misses with Adrian . . . something was tugging at her, and when she bit her lip, debating her next move, it came flooding back — no, there had been one time with Adrian, in a shitty motel room just outside New Orleans' French Quarter several summers ago, when all hope had seemed lost in finding Lissa's missing sibling.
All those relationships that had changed her, shaped her, made her who she was in that moment, they were all connected by that one thing. And yet, for as much as she felt wholly different since meeting Dimitri, he wasn't at that level as the rest of them. He couldn't give her this.
And wouldn't this be the ultimate grand finale to her night of not giving a shit?
She tossed her hair back, eyes already sliding shut as anticipation raced through her. "Go for it."
She shivered when fangs brushed her throat, and when they punctured skin, she whimpered, the high she was desperately searching for billowing in like storms off the shore. She was floating high above reality. Nothing else mattered except where he drank from her, his hands spread across her back to help her from sliding off his lap.
She could hear Adrian's voice in her head, a sad, judging whisper of Alcohol doesn't make you do things you wouldn't do sober. It just removes the barriers sober you puts up.
All too soon he pulled away, licking his lips. Her eyes felt glazed over, and she wanted nothing more than to just fall into the couch and swim through the warm feelings enveloping her completely. It was as good as anything she'd felt with Dimitri; in some ways, the alcohol even heightened it more. This was the definition of bliss if she'd ever felt it.
Hands were running up and down her back soothingly, but they did nothing to quell the disgust and self-loathing that rolled in a few minutes later when she felt strong enough to move several minutes later. Without a word, she climbed off his lap, wobbling when she remember she was in tall heels.
She needed to get away. She needed another drink. Maybe she'd blackout and forget she ever just let that happen. Was this how Adrian felt every time he slipped with his cigarettes? That overwhelming crushing sense of defeat that he'd gone so long without his vice only to succumb to it again? Would she ever be above this, needing the mind-numbing high and not knowing else how to get it except to degrade herself to the very kind of person she normally talked down about?
Tonight was definitely not going into a report, participant observation be damned.
She stumbled to the bar, not realizing how much the bite still affected her, and stopped short a foot away. There, talking into each other's ears from opposite sides of the bar and looking grim, was Alex and Dimitri.
"What are you doing here?" she asked when she came up next to him, her tone bitchier than she intended. Of course the reason she wanted to let go tonight would show up and ruin everything.
She watched his eyes flick to her neck, fresh bite on display. Something in his face fell when he explained, "Alex was worried about you."
"That's sweet," she said, her tone indicating it was anything but. Was the universe always against her? To Alex, she said, "I was trying not to give a fuck tonight."
"Clearly," Alex said, judgment all over his face, as he wiped down drinking glasses.
She crossed her arms over her chest, not acknowledging the sarcasm. "Well I'm fine, so you can leave."
"I don't think that's a good idea," Dimitri replied, voice hard.
"You're not my father." Her frustration was building. "You can't tell me what to do."
"Rose," Alex warned, "I'm about to kick you out of here for your own good. You're drunk. You're high. Go home and sleep it off."
"Fuck off," she snapped, instantly regretting it when she saw Alex's jaw tighten.
"Rose," Dimitri said, and something about the way he said it made her stop and really look at him. Hurt was draped across his face for anyone to see, and the blatant display of emotion set her insides churning.
"Fine, I'll go. Lead the way," she said, waving arm like she was indicating the path. Dimitri shot Alex a look and then Rose, in all her drunken boldness, added, "This is fucking stupid. I just wanted a night to myself and now it's been ruined. You know what? I don't even care right now. I can get home on my own."
Something inside Dimitri reached its tipping point. "Do you really think you can make it out of here without my help or am I going to need to stop you from throwing yourself at every guy you see?" he snapped, eyes blazing, and she jerked at his tone.
"Is that your subtle way of calling me a slut?" she asked, hurt and anger coursing through her. Where did he get off saying this stuff? "Because fuck you if that's what you think."
"My opinion doesn't matter because you already did," he said tightly.
She laughed in disbelief. "God, you come off all grown up and shit, but it's just a really good front you put up, isn't it? You know who makes comebacks about sex? Immature assholes." When Dimitri didn't respond, his stormy gaze still pinning her where she stood, she scoffed and turned on her heel to leave.
He caught up with her outside. "I'm not getting into it with you while you're like this," he said, now at a normal volume. The guardians flanking the entrance eyed them warily.
"Isn't that the same excuse you gave that night you didn't sleep with me?" Rose asked. "What, do you just avoid conversations when someone might feel vulnerable? Because this is me, Dimitri. I might be drunk, but I'm sure as hell more open now that I usually am."
"Open for anything, I see," he said coolly.
Her bitten neck burned. "You don't know anything about me."
"Apparently."
She was seething. There was a touch of darkness in the bond and it called out to her, a siren's voice of temptation almost as strong as Sergey's offered bite. She took it without thinking, letting the anger swirl around her.
"You know, I thought I was insane for falling for you — a guy I haven't known my whole life — so quickly, but I told myself I wasn't, because I assumed you were different. I assumed you were better able to handle me because you're older and nobody my age has been able to before, but you're freaking out over baggage you weren't expecting, so I guess I was right in thinking I was crazy for letting you in because you really are a stranger to me."
"I don't know who you are either," Dimitri said, fists balled by his sides, and his reply sent her storming away with a scream, a piercing shriek in the night as the darkness took hold.
"One night, one fucking night," she ranted to no one in particular, pacing back and forth. "One fucking night to myself because I can't have you when all I want is you but I also can't let my guard down ever because God forbid I ever end up like you, depressed and angry at the world because you slipped once and it cost you your best friend's life and I never wanted this assignment and I can't even have my own fucking sanity because my life is controlled, every day, by Lissa, by that stupid Council, by everyone who isn't me!"
She crumbled in the spot where she'd stopped moving. Her sobs echoed around the alley they were in danger of being swallowed up by; the weight of how much she didn't have control over her own life was weighing her down so much, it physically pushed her to the ground when she began crying in earnest.
Dimitri must have been torn on what to do because it took him a few seconds to come over and pull her up, arms encircling her as she cried into his chest, hating how powerless she felt. The fear that she didn't know who she was outside of her bond and guardianship to Lissa had taken root in her heart at some unknown earlier point in time, and it fanned out now, rolling through her body and mind at a relentless pace. She gripped his shirt like she might drift away again as she wondered who the hell she was.
Eventually, a cab rolled up and she was urged into the backseat, frustration and concern warring across his face. She curled up in the corner opposite him and stared out the window, trying to quell her nausea. She'd never thought about it before, how she didn't really exist outside of her relationship with Lissa — her career, her housing, hell, even most of her wardrobe was dictated by being Lissa's guardian. Her hobbies, running and reading, were always spurred by working to make Lissa's life easier, better, safer. What was hers that wasn't touched by Lissa?
She didn't mind being close to Lissa. She leaned on it, survived on the support and makeshift family her friend could offer, but she was now realizing how entrenched she was in someone else's life and how it took away from her own.
The cab hadn't pulled to a full stop in front of the house when she spilled out, slamming the door and striding towards the door without waiting for Dimitri. She stopped when she got to the front door and was confronted with the reminder that she'd left her key to the house in Viktoria's bag. Dimitri would have to let her in, and he looked like he was ready to launch into a more in-depth conversation now that they were aware from public ears. Maybe if she banged on the door hard enough—
"Rose, what's going on with you?"
She turned around. The cab was gone. Dimitri had his hands in the pockets of his duster, shoulders hunched in the cold. She was still too drunk to feel how it was below freezing out and she didn't have on anything more than a shirt and bra to protect her from the temperature. The darkness pricked at the back of her mind, egging her annoyance on.
"What do you mean?"
"You're up, you're down, you're starting fights out of nothing. It's . . . it's not like you."
She crossed her arms over her chest. "I thought we already established you don't know anything about me."
"Not the point I'm trying to make," he replied gruffly, anger sparking in his eyes again.
"Why do you even care?"
The anger gave way to shock and sadness. "Because I care about you and because I worry about your happiness."
She said nothing, shifting her weight to her other foot.
"Because it's been three weeks and in that time, you've become the most important person in my life." He looked so small despite his height that she nearly caved. "Earlier," he said, looking past her shoulder, "you said you couldn't have me." His eyes flicked back up to hers. "What did you mean by that?"
His calm demeanor knocked her thoughts off balance. She'd been preparing for an all-out fight — definitely not this gentle worry he was showing. "Some people," she said, trying to shift her anger away from him because really, he didn't deserve it, that much she was coherent enough to rationalize, "Have decided that by getting involved with you, I'm not doing my job to the best of my ability. That you'll cloud my judgment and I won't be able to meet their standards. And some of my past actions have given them more bargaining power than I would like."
"That's ridiculous."
"Tell me about it." If she smoked, this would be the part where she pulled a cigarette out. Instead, she leaned against the front door and lolled her head to the side, now trying to avoid his gaze. It would make this easier if she didn't have to see the pain in his eyes. "I've been trying to tell you, but I just . . . couldn't."
"Is that why you've been so off lately?"
It was like talking to Viktoria all over again. Only this time, there was no planning. The ugly conversation was happening.
"Partly. Lissa's medication isn't working so well lately, and that usually affects me before it affects her. She feels closer to her magic, but she's far too busy to realize what that usually means."
"You sound—"
"Angry? Annoyed that my best friend isn't thinking about me when all I do is worry to death over her?" She frowned. "I've been having a lot of revelations tonight about this stuff. If I wasn't sure your country is trying to turn me into an alcoholic, I'd get drunk more often. Apparently I do all my best thinking then."
"That's not healthy."
"Neither is this." She tapped the now-healing bruise, her fingers lingering against her neck. "I love Lissa, but I've given up a lot for her. And I'm about to give you up for her, too."
"You don't have to," he replied fiercely, moving closer to her. He braced himself with an arm against the door, just close enough that her head could rest against his bulging forearm.
"Don't I?" Her laugh was choked, her voice small. "I don't know how to exist outside of my job, Dimitri. I went from giving authority the middle finger to jumping every time a superior tells me to. I don't know why that happened, but it did, and I wish so hard, every day, that I could find my old self, rediscover the girl who'd say 'screw it' and ignore what she's being told because she'd rather go for what she wants." She leaned into his hand when he cupped her cheek, his thumb stroking over her cheekbone. "But my life has always been about helping others. I've never put myself first, and I don't see that happening anytime soon, not when I'm so close to finally being Lissa's sanctioned guardian." She sniffed. "And regardless, I don't even know how to put myself first."
He leaned his forehead against hers and she wrapped the lapels of his coat in her hands, needing some kind of contact with him. "I wish I was your age," he murmured, "Because then I could blame my urge to ask you to try for me on being young. Now I'm just being selfish."
"Selfishness is a luxury we don't have," she said quietly.
"I know." He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "As much as it kills me to say this . . . I won't make you stay if it's what you want. I'm not going to ask you to upend your life for someone you barely know."
Her eyes watered, but no tears fell; she was too strung out to cry. Mostly she just wanted to get into bed and sleep away her pain.
He whispered something in Russian, but she didn't quite catch it, drowsiness taking hold over her consciousness. The corners of his mouth were pulled down when he leaned away and reached into his pocket for his keys, and she tried not to feel like something great was slipping through her fingers when she silently followed him into the house.