Gosh, I am hitting my head against the computer screen right now.
I am so sorry to anybody who read this before, but this is the same chapter I uploaded earlier today.
Me, being the idiot I am, accidently deleted this chapter instead of another. And so I had to re-upload it. Sorry for the inconvenience!
For people who haven't read it, here is the next chapter!
Much love,
.Lysa.
"Dimitri! Get up! Now!"
Dimitri groaned and turned over under the covers. "Mom! I don't have classes today!"
"Well, Viktoria does! Get UP!"
Dimitri groaned again into his pillow and then shoved the covers off. A wave of cold wind hit his bare chest, and he almost grabbed the covers back.
Knock knock. Dimitri yawned.
"Come in."
The door swung open and to his surprise, it wasn't his mother standing in the doorway. Not even his sister. It was Rose.
"Hey," she said softly, tucking a waif piece of hair behind her ears. Today, instead of leaving it down, she had bound it into a messy bun on top of her head; stray bits that had escaped the rubber band hanging around her face in waves. She looked like one of his sister's dolls.
She still wore the ratty blue overalls from last night- her work clothes she had explain-but had changed the top.
One strap of her overall had come undone and was hanging loose down her front. He wished she would button it already.
"Your mom told me to give you this," Rose continued, cautiously holding out a mug of coffee.
"Er, yeah. Just leave it over there on the cupboard." He gestured to the cupboard. "I'll be down in a few," Dimitri told her with a smile. She returned the smile and obliged, backing out of the room to Dimitri's relief.
Within in five minutes, he had shaved, thrown on a shirt, swallowed the coffee down and was in his jacket. He was ready before Viktoria was.
"Move it woman. Haven't got all day," Dimitri called down the hall. His mother came bustling down the corridor with a harassed looking Viktoria on her heels.
"…You know, you could get all this done if you just woke up five minutes early," Olena was telling Viktoria.
Viktoria simply shrugged her bag on and kissed her mother on the cheek. "Thing is, I don't want to mother."
Olena turned and grabbed her hat, shoving it roughly on her head, like some crazy lady at the market. "Make sure you cover the ears! I don't want you coming home sick!"
Dimitri was in hysterics now. Viktoria looked like a grumpy version of Bert from Sesame Street. Minus the monobrow. Priceless. Hit on youtube: "Ugly Bert in a beanie: Volume 1." He could see it now.
"See? This is why I don't do that, ma!" Viktoria tore of the hat and shoved it back into Olena's hands. "I just made his day. And some really retarded man on youtube's day."
"Damn straight!" Dimitri confirmed. His mother gave him a dark, disapproving look.
Dimitri shrank a little and dropped the smile, replacing it with an acceptable, hopefully believable serene expression.
"Okay, okay, we're going Princess." Dimitri grabbed Viktoria's arm and flung her out into the cold morning air.
"Fresh air," Dimitri declared, stretching his arms out. He took a deep breath. "Don't you love it?"
Viktoria ducked under his arms, smiling sourly and replied sarcastically, "Yes. Just as much as I love your hairy armpits on display."
Dimitri swiped at her. She ducked. "Too slow old man. Move it!" Viktoria yelled as she ran down the steps.
"Wait!" Dimitri stopped in his tracks when a little hand grabbed onto his jacket sleeve. He turned.
His mother. With her usual worried look and frown whenever Dimitri and Viktoria left, Olena dropped a set of keys into Dimitri's hands.
"I'll be out by the time you get back. A shift at the nursing home. Overtime. Gotta love it!" She wrung her hands nervously and smiled. "Take care of Rose and Viktoria. I'll be back by 6, okay?"
With determinedly pursed lips, Olena reached up and tucked a piece of his hair behind his ear. "My baby."
Dimitri rolled his eyes. "Mom! Jeez. I'll see you later." He pecked her lightly on the cheek and waved as he ran down the steps. "Love you!"
"Hello? Monet? Where are you?" Dimitri shrugged off his jacket and hung it up on the hook. His mother had clearly left, for her jacket was nowhere in sight.
"Down here!" A small voice yelled back. He turned. The garage.
Dimitri took his time coming down, trudging slowly down the creaky stairs of the garage with heavy footsteps. He stopped at the end of the stairs, right on the last step.
"Aren't you freezing?" Dimitri asked softly. Rose was standing in the middle of the garage, in the middle of all the junk of the garage: his old T-shirts, Viktoria's old toys and games, Grandmother's fortune telling stuff, old boardgames and various other things he didn't even know they owned. The garage looked basically the same. Save for the fact all their stuff was pushed to the corners, allowing the main area of the room to be used by Rose.
Her paints, brushes, easels and canvases littered the surrounding floor and windows. Old, torn rags covered the tile flooring of the room, decorated with cans and tubes of paint and boxes.
In the middle of the room however, one easel had been set up, right under the illumination of the light. A large canvas stood on its holder, half-painted and half dry.
Rose sighed. Her petite face, though clear of make-up, was dotted in dry paint of blue and green. Her hands and arms were also splashed in colour, some dry; some wet. Price of being an artiste I guess.
"No. I'm alright. Just a little…jet-lagged I guess." She shrugged, putting down her little plate of paint and sitting down on one of the nearby boxes. "It's so annoying, I just keep going in and out of sleepiness."
He moved closer to her and sat down on the box next to hers. "Go to sleep then," he suggested, nudging her lightly.
She turned and smiled wearily. "I can't. I told you: I go in and out of sleep." Rose moved a little closer and put her head on his shoulder. He tried not to stiffen.
"Don't you think something's missing?" Rose whispered suddenly.
"Huh?"
She gestured silently to the canvas in front of them. His first thoughts of the painting were that it was beautiful. She had painted something lovely. A modern Garden of Eden, blooming with sunshine and waterfalls and wild flowers of every colour imaginable. A rainbow of colours to his eyes, it was simply magnificent. But Rose didn't seem to agree with that. She was sadly frowning at it.
"I don't know. My work is just," she groped for the word desperately, "I don't know. Dry. Lacking. I just….I need inspiration, you know?" She sat up suddenly, releasing the warm pressure on his shoulder. Her eyes were alight with something; a dark impish glint in her otherwise brown eyes. Dimitri didn't like it.
"You got any Merlot?"
"Some what?"
"Merlot. Wine. Beer. Champagne. Anything alcoholic." She poked him. "Something to get the blood pumping."
Dimitri looked taken aback. "This early? And are you even legal?" A dry look. "Okay, point taken."
She grabbed his arm. "Come on. I need some inspiration." Rose dug her nails in. "Inspiration."
"This is all we got." Dimitri flourished the large bottle and set it down on the kitchen table.
Rose squinted. "What is that?"
"Russian Vodka. The strongest vodka you'll probably ever consume, Hathaway. Got the stomach for it?" Dimitri smiled and slammed two glasses on the table.
Rose sneered and grabbed both glasses. "How about we make things interesting?" She jumped up and ducked her head into one of the cabinets. "Shots?" She held up two tiny glasses in both hands.
"I thought this was about inspiration?"
"It is! In a way. Think of it as therapy," Rose told him. She slammed the glasses onto the table, twisted the cap of the vodka and filled both glasses to the brim.
"Cheers." With eyes on each other, they both held up the glasses and swallowed it. Whole.
Spluttering ensued from Rose's end of the table. Dimitri smiled and slammed his glass down, drumming his hands against the wood of the table. He knew Hathaway couldn't take it.
"You alright, Hathaway? Too small to handle the bite?"
She shot him a sour look and wiped her mouth against the back of her hand. "Oh, it is on Belikov."
So Rose poured. More and more. Glass after glass, they drank, never breaking eye contact, trying to ignore the horrible burn in their throats. Until there wasn't any vodka left. Dimitri had to admit: he wasn't doing well. The world was blurring. Or was that normal? Right now, he had no idea.
Rose looked…well, she looked…hot. As always. But oddly weird, all drunk and sprawled all over the kitchen table. And for some reason, the only thing he kept seeing were lights and Rose. Rose in white. Rose in black. Rose in any sort of colour. But either way, one thing was clear: He wanted her. He wanted to grab her. Roughly. Shove her against the table. And then make sweet love to her for hours and hours and hours and hours….
"Belikov!" Somebody barked. He snapped out of his reverie.
"Yes! I am so there it's insane!" Dimitri yelled.
Rose yelled back, "Not deaf Belikov!"
"Oh, gosh. I'm drunk stupid." Rose gave him a weak thumbs up. Dimitri buried his thumping head in his hands. "That was stupid." Another thumbs up.
Rose suddenly lifted her bobbing head up and frowned. "My boyfriend was a jackass."
"What?" He laughed.
"Jackass. Boyfriend," Rose screamed. "Well, ex-boyfriend now."
Dimitri put his head down. "My girlfriend was psycho. Like….psycho." He started laughing, a crazy unhinged laugh.
When he stopped, Rose was staring into space with a blank look. "His name was Adrian," she whispered sadly, burying her head in her hands. "Player of the century. The hottest guy in the world. But dumb as rocks."
Dimitri glanced up. "Tasha. Biggest bitch EVER. Girlfriend of two years." Rose looked up. "Master of blackmailing and back-stabbing."
Rose stared at him for a while, hard, before grabbing the glasses again and filling it up.
She held it up in a toast.
"To jackasses and biatches. Don't need em." They clinked and downed it.
"Why'd you come here? Really?" Dimitri's words were starting to slur now. He should have stopped. Well, they should have stopped. But they were so depressed and sad with the world. There wasn't any other solution.
Rose frowned angrily. "I told you! Work program."
Dimitri raised his eyebrows and squinted. "Uh huh. Where'd you get all the cash for all the art stuff? You must be-"
"Loaded?" Rose supplied. Dimitri managed a weak nod.
Rose sighed. "I told you, Dad wasn't part of the picture. Neither was mom really. But dad at least tried to make up for that. He paid for all my tuition and anything I needed."
"Man. That's-"
"Cool, huh?" Rose smiled. "Cool."
Dimitri fingered his glass.
"I came here to get away," Rose started. "Get away from my life. My mom. My ex-boyfriends." She paused. "As an artist, I wasn't getting much. Cash, I mean. It's a hard market. Mom was always on my back about getting my act together, learning to pay for rent, finishing school. So I just moved my shit and came here. Nothing to lose and nobody on my case." Rose smiled and leaned back, putting her head against her arms.
"How about you? Living with mommy?"
Dimitri gave her a lazy, half-hearted look. "No. I have my own place." He frowned. "In the city. Grandma and my other sisters went overseas for a while, so Viktoria and mom were here alone." Dimitri sighed. "So I agreed to move in for a few months."
"Such a good boy."
"Shut up."
"You're so-ahhhhh!"
Dimitri, in his own fuzzy world, took a while to finally register the scene in front of him. Rose. Toppled chair. On the floor. Laughing. He crawled onto the floor next to her. She was still shaking with maniacal laughter.
Dimitri chuckled lightly. "Hey, you okay?" He moved a stray piece of hair off her cheek. She stopped laughing and turned her head to survey him.
"Yeah." She stared into his eyes, the etch of her last laugh still evident on her beatific face. He had been stared at before, way too many times to his chagrin, but this…this was different. With Rose…well, it felt like she was staring into his soul when she looked at him like that. A hot, white burning coil of desire burnt deep in his heart. Or was that the vodka speaking?
"I think we should-" Dimitri started.
"Watch the Wiggles!" Rose screamed suddenly, jumping up from the floor; a weird and childlike excitement projecting from her quivering body. She raced down the hall before a bewildered Dimitri could reply or get up.
"There's so swirly," Rose said slowly as Dimitri entered the room. The television was blaring at volume 50 on some Russian channel. The Wiggles were on. Dimitri jumped over the coach and settled next to a sad/happy Rose. He cocked his head to the side.
"They are kind of swirly."
Dimitri, with an excited sort of air, looked around to say something else, when his eye caught something else. He grabbed Rose's finger.
"What's this?" She looked down. Her finger was bleeding, profusely as well, but she hadn't seemed to notice it till now. She shrugged distractingly.
"Had that ages ago. Guess I nicked it when I was opening the bottles." She sucked on it till it was no longer bloody.
Dimitri grew concerned. "Are you sure you don't want me to get a tissue, or a band aid, or-"
Rose threw her arms around Dimitri and pulled him close, making him forget everything about tissues and band-aids.
"I'm so hot." Er, yeah. Not exactly a news flash. He moved uncomfortably under her hold. Gosh, she was warm.
Rose's face turned grumpy and she scratched her paint spotted nose. She looked adorable enough to eat.
She moved closer to him, close enough that he could smell the vodka off her. Rose turned extremely serious. "I need to-I need to-I need-"
Bam.
"Hello?"
Dimitri cautiously poked Rose's limp head, lying against his chest, totally unconscious. Nope. She was all light's out.
She could have at least given him a warning before she did a face-plant just like that. He could have looked all heroic and caught her.
Instead, he smiled and patted her lightly on the back.
The next morning, Rose was already up by the time Dimitri got up. When he finally aroused, killer hangover and all, he saw the new picture Rose had painted. A painting of a bottle of vodka surrounded by two hands; one of a man and another of a woman. They were both in a strong arm-wrestling stance; a warrior like grace to their hands. She called it "Vodka hands".
Review? Was it alright?
.Lysa.