Ch 5 - Vampire
The Lexington Bar Los Angeles, California - Sometime in August
It's a bit early to be this many drinks in, even for humans. But especially for Adrian Ivashkov, whose usual nocturnal schedule has morphed into broken perceptions of time, anchored only by necessities of sleep, feeding, and many many drinks. He's become a transient of the East Coast, bouncing between worlds that match his current mood.
It started when he flew out to Budapest and ran into an old buddy attending the Formula 1 Magyar. The smell of burning oil and deafening sounds from the rumbling engines and roaring crowds were a perfect distraction. From there he followed a German Heiress on her grandfather's yacht to New York where he fell in with an underground poker ring stationed at Rao's in Harlem. He wasn't sure if he left up or down, but the cigars and cannolis were some of the best he'd ever tasted. He met a group of New York socialites, an array of influencers, trust fund kids (not unlike himself), and a few others who had jobs where they filled their bank accounts by doing nothing. The cigars had gone stale and the mafia crowd had grown a little rough, so he tagged along to the Aspen Wine & Cheese Festival. There were a few more events he attended and parties he crashed that he doesn't really remember until he finally washed up in LA.
He's since ditched the egocentric-regressed posse and finds himself moping around from one seedy dive bar to the next, no longer satisfied by endless amounts of fine Champagne and 24-karat gold everything. The Lexington Bar initially catches his eye when he walks by and hears a crowd booing someone up on stage. They are a poet or a songwriter, he can't really tell, but whatever they're doing they're completely bombing. For the next four days, he shows up right at 5 pm, waiting for the next sorry soul to get on that stage and be ridiculed off.
Some of them are good—really good—but those aren't the ones he comes for. He wants the worst ones, the ones who get up on that stage and pour their hearts out to a crowd of strangers only for it to get stomped into tiny, minuscule pieces and discarded before they feast on the next. The moment it happens, he makes sure to be just sober enough to still access the cusp of his powers, stealing a glance at the masochistic performer's aura and soaking it up.
It's like looking in a goddamn mirror.
Tonight, he's fucked up. He's had too many drinks and when the first patron goes on stage he can't see shit. They don't even show on their face how painful it is to be laughed at in a crowded room. It's like they don't even see it. The snickering faces, the exaggerated eye rolls and disgusted looks. They just keep going on and on not seeing what's right in bloody front of them!
"Fucking pathetic," Adrian slams his fist on the bartop, his Rob Roy splashing a little onto the already sticky surface.
The barkeep looks up at him as he dries off a highball glass with a rag that was once white in a past life and has since turned an unsettling shade of gray. "Ya think it's so easy, eh?" His accent indicates he's migrated here from somewhere up North. "You've been comin' in here all week. Why don't you give it a shot and see if you think it's so pathetic then."
"I wasn't talking about them," Adrian says under his breath before finishing off his drink.
"What's that," the barkeep shouts over the grumbling crowd.
"I said why not," Adrian sets his glass back down and walks up to the stage.
The MC is back, ready to announce the next slot. He gives Adrian a sour look as the slender Moroi climbs up, then quickly turns bright when he slips him three crisp $100 bills. "A last-minute change in the line-up. Now featuring," he covers the mic with his hand and bends back to Adrian who's already seated himself at the slightly out-of-tune piano. "What's your name, kid?"
Adrian lights up a clove cigarette and answers with it pressed between his lips. "Who fucking cares, let's go."
"Alright, fuck you very much too." The MC walks off and Adrian starts playing. He's not sure if the crowd has settled back down after the last act or if they're even paying attention, he just plays. The melody starts out soft, almost sweet like a lullaby. He allows a few deep inhales of smoke to settle him before putting the cigarette down and opening his mouth to sing. The euphonious notes continue to stream from the piano, almost making you forget about the occasional sharp key, but the lyrics are cold and…damaged.
Six months of torture you sold as some forbidden paradise
I loved you truly
Gotta laugh at the stupidity
The crowd is quiet as he continues on, his voice a little scratchy from the weeks of hard booze and smokes. But as he gets to the chorus his throat clears and a wicked grin grows on his face at the irony of what he decides to sing next. Is it still an inside joke if the joke's on you?
'Cause I've made some real big mistakes
But you make the worst one look fine
I should've known it was strange
You only come out at night
I used to think I was smart
But you made me look so naive
The way you sold me for parts
As you sunk your teeth into me,
Bloodsucker, famefucker
Bleedin' me dry, like a goddamn vampire
His hands bang on the piano, his head dipping down manically as he laughs at himself despite all he is laying out for them. The tune shifts from sweet to flat-out peppy but the words still show his affliction.
And everyone I ever talked to told me you were bad, bad news
You said they lacked originality, God, I hate the way I felt like I did too
You're so convincing
How do you lie without flinching?
1,200 miles away in deep woods Montana a young Moroi girl with sandy blonde hair and green eyes whispers a somber tune in her room "how do you lie, how do you lie, how do you lie?"
Back at the bar, a patron leans forward, tapping their foot along. A waitress asks a woman if she'd like another drink and is ignored as a woman's eyes are glued to the stage, a small tear forming in the right pocket. A young, somewhat familiar-looking brunette girl in the back shifts in her seat to pull out her phone and hits record on the video button.
Ooh, what a mesmerizing, paralyzing, fucked-up little thrill
Can't figure out just how you do it, and God knows I never will
You said it was true love, but wouldn't that be hard?
You can't love anyone, 'cause that would mean you had a heart
I tried to help you out, now I know that I can't
'Cause how you think's the kind of thing I'll never understand
He stands from the piano as the last chorus comes in, belting out every bit of emotion he's been hiding from these last eight weeks.
'Cause I've made some real big mistakes
But you make the worst one look fine
I should've known it was strange
You only come out at night
I used to think I was smart
But you made me look so naive
The way you sold me for parts
As you sunk your teeth into me,
Bloodsucker, famefucker
Bleedin' me dry, like a goddamn vampire
He bangs on the piano furiously one last time before sliding his fingers in glissando like something out of an old horror film then flings his head towards the audience just as they erupt in applause.
/
Moroi American Court - Sometime in November
Adrian walks through the familiar halls that, despite the lavish onsite apartment he's lived in over the years, have never felt like home. His morning stroll has left him with a bit of a chill so he pops into a quaint-looking cafe. There is a much larger, grandiose coffee shop near the center of court that most Royal Moroi frequent, but he isn't ready to announce his return and engage in meaningless political small talk.
He goes to the counter and a friendly Dhampir with purple hair and three nose rings asks for his order. They're quick with his drink and when he takes a sip, he's pleasantly surprised by how perfect it tastes. He leaves a fat tip in the jar on the counter, earning a grin from the barista.
Adrian turns to leave, hoping to slip out completely unnoticed when he hears a familiar tune. Someone nearby is humming it—not well, but it's still recognizable. He looks around until he spots a pair of headphones peeking out from behind a head of luscious brown hair. Adrian immediately knows her and surprises himself by smiling. Not at all the reaction he thought he'd have when he finally saw her again, but it makes him curious. So instead of slinking off into the shadows like a Saturday morning cartoon character, he approaches.
"Hello, Lit—" he stops himself and clears his throat. "Hi."
Rose Hathaway slowly looks up towards the familiar voice, unsure if she's actually hearing him. When she sees Adrian Ivashkov standing above her, she takes off her headphones and ever so eloquently says, "Hi back."
He glances at her phone, the Spotify playlist still open with the song she was humming playing on a loop. "Hate to give the satisfaction, asking how you're doing now," he lowly says.
Rose's eyebrows scrunch as she replays that familiar line in her head. She looks down at her phone then back to him to say, "I shouldn't be surprised that you know Olivia Rodrigo."
"Or that she knows me," he smirks.
"How's that?" Rose is thoroughly confused now.
Adrian takes a step toward the empty side of the booth but decides not to sit down. "Turns out moody vampire poetry suits me. And she," he gestures to her phone, "thought so as well."
In his mind, Adrian is back at Lexington bar, ordering a vodka martini straight up as a pretty human girl approaches his side. She says something to him that he doesn't hear. He takes a large sip of his drink and looks over to see her patiently waiting.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over the thunderous crowd." Thunderous is a bit of an exaggeration, but there are definitely still a few tables looking over at him. An older couple nods and holds up their drinks in a toast, an overweight man that could either be 25 or 40 gives him an overly enthusiastic thumbs up. Adrian smiles and waves at them before turning back to the girl.
"I said," she repeats, "that's a really great song."
"Ah," he takes another generous gulp, finishing off the drink. "You think so?"
He's not interested in this conversation, but her face is too sweet to be a dick to. So he decides to ask her a follow-up, hoping she'll get squirmy and leave him alone. He leans in, his expression shedding the flippant boy for something more devious. "What exactly did you like about it?"
Her face appears stunned as his enchanting good looks and emerald eyes pierce her, but it's only a moment before she launches into her synopsis. "The superficiality and manipulative behavior you expressed in the lyrics was really spectacular. There's a," she pauses, her finger coming up to her magenta lipstick-coated mouth in thought before that aha moment, "an unhurried emotional logic to the track's structure. And I especially liked the balance of rage and disappointment in this other person and yourself. I think with a couple of tweaks to the lyrics and some clean-up during the second verse you could really make something of it."
Adrian plops down on a stool, only just now realizing how drunk he is as his head swims around her analysis. "You're a songwriter," it's not a question.
"Singer/songwriter," she corrects. "I'm Olivia." She reaches out her hand and he returns the gesture with a shake.
"Adrian."
They sit at the bar and talk for hours. She plays the video of his performance back to him and he orders water and a beer. When he asks to hear one of her songs he realizes he's heard it before. He tells her his friend Jill listens to her stuff and she records a short video on his phone of her saying a personalized hello and thanks for being a fan.
Eventually, she gets to the point Adrian knows has been coming. "Listen Adrian, I've been looking around for a while hoping to find someone open to collabing with me. I know things are still fresh, but sharing that pain could be cathartic for you. Sharing it with others who can relate makes it feel…less lonely, you know?"
Adrian takes a big gulp of his water, pretending to consider her offer but already knowing what his answer's going to be. "Why don't you just ask one of the other up-and-coming artists you've bumped elbows with at the, what's it called, Grammys?"
"Did you seriously just ask what the Grammys are called," she gives him an incredulous look. "I could, but I don't want to. I want to give someone unknown an opportunity and find talent out there that isn't already part of the mainstream wheel on a loop. So…what do you say? Interested?"
The Moroi signals to the bartender that he's ready for his tab and reaches into his back pocket for his wallet. "I'll tell you what Livy," he throws a couple of bills on top of the check and stands to leave. "You can just have it."
"What?"
"It's all yours. See ya around."
Adrian walks out into the unseasonably warm night and begins to pull out another clove cigarette, trying his best to ignore the young girl who's followed him.
"I can't do that, Adrian."
He flicks his lighter a few times and cups his hands around it when the flame still isn't igniting. "Sure you can. You've got the video, change it however you want. I don't care."
He brings his hands down and begins shaking the lighter, his frustration growing.
"That's not how it works. Besides, it's your song. It wouldn't be right."
Adrian lets out a long sigh, the cigarette bouncing in his mouth. He pulls it out and turns to face the girl. His eyes hone in, his magic bubbling at the surface. He could compel her. Make her take the song and believe it was hers, or tell her to forget the whole night and delete the footage. But something stops him. It wouldn't be right.
He looks down at his hand, the useless lighter a heavy weight. And then an idea sparks.
"I'll trade you for it."
"But that's—"
"Listen doll, I'm not interested in putting my name in lights. I don't want what you're offering no matter how you sell it. But if you really like the song, and you want to do something with it, let's make a deal. That's the only offer I'm taking."
Olivia lets out a huff, a look growing on her face Adrian hasn't seen yet. One that says she feels she's been played, and doesn't like it. "So that's how it's going to be? How much money do you want?"
Adrian laughs, his teeth flashing and Olivia swears she catches a glimpse of two elongated fangs. "You think I want money? Sweetheart, I don't want your money."
Oliva crosses her arms around her waist and takes a step back, only just now realizing they are alone on a dimly lit street in a not-so-great part of town. Adrian flips the lighter along his fingers, the silver catching a beam of light from the neon bar sign flashing on and off above them. "Follow me."
"A lighter?!" Rose is practically squealing. "You gave her a number 1 top hit for a friggin lighter? Is that some kind of joke?"
"Absolutely not," Adrian reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a slim Venetian high-polish brass lighter. "This is vintage, the finest of its time. Have some taste, Rose."
Her shock manifests into a gaping mouth, words unable to form a response.
"Besides, every time I use it I think of Livy and the lovely evening we shared. Seems like an even trade to me." The satisfied Moroi flips the lighter along the tops of his knuckles before sinking it back into his pocket. He spots another familiar face entering the cafe and decides it's time to go. "Well, this was…nice actually. Enjoy your," he looks down at her cup, "butterscotch latte."
Dimitri Belikov turns from the counter to find himself face-to-face with Adrian. Before he can say or do anything, Adrian pats him on the shoulder roughly and says, "Good to see you doing well Belikov. That beard is coming in nicely," and walks out of the cafe.
The Dhampir sits at a table to join a fuming Rose. Her face is red and her hands are gripped tightly around a pair of headphones. "Did you know Adrian was back in town," he asks as he takes a sip of his warm drink.
"No," she grits out.
"I'm assuming you just talked to him then."
"Yes." It sounds more like a hiss than an answer.
It doesn't take a genius to tell she doesn't want to talk about it so Dimitri opts for changing the conversation instead of asking. After about 20 minutes of monosyllabic answers, Rose perks up and hurriedly asks, "Can I see your phone?!"
Dimitri snatches it off the table before Rose can reach it and holds it up next to his face. "Last time I let you use it, you took photos of me and sent them to Lissa and Christian with dumb quotes on them."
"Excuse me they are called memes and they weren't dumb. 'Zen master deducing the life of the coffee bean' was comedy gold. Some of my best work."
He stares at her unamused.
"I'm not going to take pictures of you, I promise. Now please will you just gimme it?" She holds out her hand impatiently, on the verge of using puppy eyes on him if she has to.
Dimitri holds off for another minute, before reluctantly deciding to trust her. "Fine," he says as he places it in her hand, only to pull it right back out. "But if you—"
"I won't take videos of you with the bold glamour filter and post them on TikTok either."
"You won't what?"
Rose snatches it away and flips through his home screen until she finds his contacts. She types in a name and sends the info to herself then tosses the phone back to him. He catches it just before it falls into his lap and Rose gets up to leave. "Thanks, Comrade. Gotta run."
Rose snatches her coat and opens up her messages to start a new one.
This is Rose Hathaway. Any chance you're free at 2:30 am?
/
Dr. Greene's office - November 18th
"I mean the fucking audacity! How could he a) write all that shit about me that's so untrue and b) not even be cashing in on the royalties. It's so fucked!"
"You believe what he created was a lie," Dr. Greene calmly asks as she pencils in a few notes.
"Well some of it was obviously changed, he said as much when he practically gave it to Olivia Freaking Rodrigo, but those other parts—it's so uncalled for!"
"Uncalled for - which parts exactly?"
Rose flips open her phone, her search engine already on the lyrics. She'd been reading them over and over for the past few hours, stewing over every line that she'd sung in her shower, at the gym, in her best friend's goddam bedroom like they were putting on a midnight concert for their adoring fans. She's going to have to throw away her hairbrush microphone as soon as she gets home.
"Okay like this," she reads it in her head and oddly, this time anger isn't the first emotion to arise. Even though she knows the line by heart, she feels like she is reading it for the first time—the Dr. there as a witness is creating a new, scrutinizing lens. She shakes her head and moves on, "Forget about that one. This, right here. 'How do you lie without flinching'. I never lied to him."
"Why do you think he believes you did?"
"You're asking me to go inside the mind of Adrian Ivashkov? Who knows why he does anything?!"
"Rose," Dr. Greene replies stonefaced, urging Rose to take this seriously.
"Ugh, fine. Maybe because he thinks I wasn't over Dimitri when we got together or something. But I didn't lie about that. He was one of the few people that knew about us and he could see my goddamn aura for Vlad's sake. Of all people, he should've known that I wasn't ready to be with anyone."
"Is it possible he decided to take your word instead of relying on his gifts?"
Rose thinks about this for a second before replying. "Maybe. But that doesn't mean he should make me out to be some kind of gold-digger or whatever. Like I was using him for money."
"Expand on this. What gave you that assumption?"
"It's in the undertones or whatever. 'I tried to help you out. Famefucker. Bleedin' me dry.' It's all there. I didn't use him, he offered. He made the arrangement."
"Arrangement," Dr. Greene writes something down again and Rose's chest feels tight.
"No, I don't mean arrangement. It was more like—he—" her thoughts are becoming scattered, her breaths coming in short. "He used me too! I was the vulnerable one. I had just lost the man I lo—" she stops herself. Not wanting to say it out loud. The last time she did, she was told it didn't matter.
"Someone I cared for had just been turned Strigoi. I had a single-track mindset and wasn't letting anything get in the way of what I thought I had to do. I wasn't thinking about anyone else—not even myself. All I could think about was him…and what he'd become."
Dr. Green takes a pause, letting Rose's words have time to steep. After a moment, she says, "And what outcome were you hoping for yourself?"
"What? Were you not listening to what I just said?" Rose begins to think requesting this session was a stupid idea.
"Of course I was. But I'm seeing a recurring pattern. You mentioned in past sessions about the dedication you had to Lissa—"
"Have," Rose corrects.
"And how focussed you've been on protecting her. Then there was this shift in your need to help Dimitri."
"And…"
"So I ask again, what were you hoping the outcome would be for yourself on this mission?"
Rose leans forward and looks down in thought, trying hard to focus on this conversation instead of falling back into old habits of backlashing and deflecting.
"I guess there wasn't one. I wasn't trying to do anything that would have a resolution for me. It was just what I thought he would want. Something I had to do for him."
"So you're saying it was an act of selflessness?"
Rose looks up with just her eyes, "Now you're making me sound sanctimonious."
"I think you mean altruistic."
"That too."
"So back to the reason you requested this session." Rose grinds her teeth a little. Even though it was a simple fact, hearing it made her annoyed with herself. "What do you think in these acts of selflessness would have caused Adrian to react this way?"
Unable to help herself, Rose rolls her eyes. "I thought we aren't responsible for how other people react to our actions?"
"That may be true, but it's also good to understand why our actions caused a reaction—especially if their reaction is making us feel a certain way."
Rose grumbles something under her breath that the doctor chooses to ignore. When the Moroi just sits there silent and patient, Rose looses a sigh and leans into the back of the sofa cushions.
"It wasn't so much the trip to Baia," she finally says. "That happened before we were together. Yeah, he's obviously referencing that as a part of me using him, but I don't think that's what caused him to lash out."
"Go on," the doctor encourages.
Rose licks her lips and takes another deep breath. "There were a lot of times Adrian was there for me—when no one else was. Not even Lissa. And I don't…I don't think that was reciprocated. I cared for him, I really did, but there was always something else there…in the way; keeping me from truly being with him in the way he needed me to be. And when I finally realized that it would never not be there, it was too late to end things without hurting him." It wasn't just her love for Dimitri. Towards the end of their relationship, Rose found herself questioning it more and more. With Adrian, she felt like she was a puzzle to be solved, that maybe he was more interested in the darkness and tie to Spirit than who she actually was. That their flaws and past traumas were a justified connection. But two broken people can't make each other whole. And Rose didn't want to be broken anymore.
With Dimitri—even with things ending the way they did, he had still given her a glimpse of what it was like to be loved by someone who truly wanted her. All of her.
"So these reactions from Adrian stemmed from things that happened later, here at court," Dr. Greene asks.
"Yes. Again, I thought I was doing what I needed to do for people to see Dimitri was restored. I thought I was helping. But when my help wasn't accepted, I felt," Rose's fingers begin playing with the ends of her hair, "lost. Puporseless."
"How did that affect your relationship with Adrian?"
"I guess I leaned on him more; tried to connect with him more since I was being rejected elsewhere. Which in hindsight is a shit thing to do. I know now we should have never been together in the first place, but I was too wrapped up at the time to take a step back. I felt like if I stopped, then everything would just come crashing in. Forward was the only way."
"So it sounds like you're saying, putting all of your energy and focus into a singular goal was a method to help you cope with things you didn't want to deal with."
Rose nods.
"But is it possible," Dr. Green continues, "that this mechanism was also preventing you from seeing the potential consequences that some of your actions could have? No matter how good the intent behind them may be."
"Are you saying that in these 'acts of selflessness' that I was being selfish?"
"Do you think you were being selfish?"
A soft melody accompanied by words of heartbreak flows through Rose's head. A song that used to feel so harmless and fun now feels grossly personal. The look in a pair of stark emerald eyes shifts from desire, pleading, anger to finally, crestfallen.
'Cause how you think's the kind of thing I'll never understand…
You can't love anyone, 'cause that would mean you had a heart…
A single tear rolls down Rose's cheek. She doesn't wipe it away.
"Yes," she softly answers.
A timer goes off in the back of the room.
A/N: I know this CH seems random, but ever since hearing the song Vampire by Olivia Rodrigo I had this intrusive thought of Adrian writing moody vampire poetry and decided to let it win. It makes more sense to me than the painting spree XD. I also wanted Rose to be held accountable for things she's done. In this universe, there was no cheating happening, but there were still mistakes made on both sides. Rose needs to see that she's hurt people by being too caught up in her priorities in order to make changes to better herself.
On a lighter note - here is a list of hilarious memes the great Lauren came up with that Rose would've created of a deadpan Dimitri and sent to the group chat:
"When the estranged family comes around."
"Me on my birthday."
"When the 80s called but didn't want to speak to me."
"trying to comprehend the beauty that is Rose Hathaway."
"just trying to comprehend."
"What is a tik tok"
"found out that Columbian roasted beans are not roasted in Columbia."
"all slay no play"