Punch first, ask questions later

avenging angel. deliverer of justice. smartmouth. 

[rosehasaway]

ravishinavodka:

“Nope,” he replied easily, trading in his comfortable posture so he could search around the cabin space. “If I told you, there’d be no mystery. If there’s no mystery, there’s nothing to keep your mind occupied. And if I remember correctly,” he paused, pulling up a glove from under the seat, inspecting it, and then tossing it to the side before reaching his arm deeper into the dark. “Keeping your mind occupied is the entire point.”

After a few moments of feeling around under his seat, Adrian pulled out a bottle of champagne. “Ah ha,” he said, delighted. “No one will ever provide for me like I provide for me.” With a loud pop and the familiar sizzling of bubbles, he passed the bottle to Rose. Her needs were greater than his, and from the looks of things she could use something to steady her hands. He knew better than to say as much though.  

“You want to hear a story, Little Dhampir?” It was no coincidence that he flitted from topic to topic with barely a second in between to breathe. Adrian, more than most, knew of the dangers of ruminating. And as Silence and Sloth were the parents of rumination, he was sure to keep them as far away from this situation as possible. He cared little if his wiles were irksome; he’d always been very good at being annoying and now seemed like a bad time to stop. 

“I want to keep my mind occupied with the answer.” Her words held no malice, nor any real demands. It was more of a pout that landed itself on her fade, lacing her words with almost a childlike nature. Leave it to Adrian to not only smuggle her out of the palace, but immediately switch her mood from complete devestation to slight annoyance and curiosity. She knew he was right. The many different possible answers were sure to give her more to think on than one exact answer. Except it was driving her slightly mad. The entire world seemed out of wack and now she felt like she was floating through an endless void. When was the last time it had just been her?

Ever since she could remember it was her and Lissa. And then once Lissa had found Christian, Rose had found Dimitri. They had been perfectly paired--still best friends, but they had found people to fill out the role of constant companion. Now she felt like she had been cut off from all of that. However necessary it was, at least for now, it still made Rose feel like half of her was missing. She hoped it was retrievable.

Rose stared, quietly enjoying how much Adrian seemed to impress himself. She took the bottle willingly, although her thoughts quickly drifted to the last time she drank with him. Dreams didn’t really count where drinking was concerned. Neither of them had gotten drunk. Well, she was certain she wasn’t drunk. But the conversation itself made her feel tipsy. Especially the catastrophic ending that felt more like an explosion than a faux hangover.

Rose drank. And drank. And drank. The coolness of the bottle felt nice on her calloused hands, and the liquid dripping down her throat, the bubbles fighting back--it at least made her feel something.

“Only so long as you don’t say that this story is about a charming prince rescuing a damsel from a large castle after she fought a dragon.” She sat the bottle, now half empty, in her lap, her attention once more focused on him.

[rosehasaway]

ravishinavodka:

Adrian smiled. “That’s what I thought you’d say,” he replied, and then they were off. He knew every corner of Court like it were a painting he had created in his youth and remastered time and time again over the years; every pathway, every hidden nook, every quiet corner, and most importantly every way out. Despite the sheer size of their confinement, Adrian was ushering Rose to the gate in under three minutes, a car already pulled up and running for them on the other side and a guard tipping Adrian the brim of his hat as he let the pair pass. 

“Quiet night, Herb?” he asked the young guard, who pulled himself up to full height once addressed but still had all the softness of a boy fresh on the job and hoping in equal parts to succeed and to be liked. Adrian smiled a little at his eagerness. 

“Sure has been, Mr. Iv– Adrian,” Herb replied, his voice oddly higher than Adrian had remembered. The quick way the boy corrected himself ought to have said something about the sheer number of times Adrian had amicably reprimanded him since he’d arrived back at court. Mr. Ivashkov still have his an uncomfortable shiver up the spine, like his father was watching. For all Adrian knew, he probably was. 

“Well I hope that turns around for you,” Adrian winked, and Herb went pink in the cheeks. He had a feeling Herb did not hope it ended up being anything other than another quiet night. With that, Adrian extended a hand to open the back door of the car for Rose, ushering for her to slide in. “Mi-lady,” he jested. And then, to the driver, “Just head about twenty minutes up Route 55, can’t miss it.” 

Once Adrian himself was settled into the warm leather of the car’s backseat, he turned back to Rose. “Maybe not as sneaky as I could have been. Having a car waiting and running is a little… extra.” He was grinning widely. “But like you said, you’re the one who was trained for stealth. Me,” he relaxed further into the seat, resting an ankle across his knee in a sprawled, lazy manner. “I was trained for pomp.”

There was little surprise reflected in Rose’s eyes. She went willingly, her legs keeping up the pace, and her face feeling numb. Adrian had always been impressive. Everything he did was a grand gesture. He wasn’t extravagant, that had never been the proper word. But he was larger than life. Maybe that was why Rose felt calm. There were no more tears flowing, though she knew that was a momentary thing, but she could feel the puffiness of her eyes, and the way she was sure her hair was sticking up in a million directions, a surefire sign that all was not well.

Rose barely listened to the conversation that flowed between Adrian and the driver. She heard that his name was Herb, and though she desperately wanted to laugh at such a ridiculous name, the laugh found itself caught in her throat. Choking her. 

She climbed into the backseat, following Adrian once more, not quite hearing what he had said to her as he opened the door. Living in silence felt off to Rose. Her entire life had been built around figuring out her surroundings and preparing herself for any inevitable attack. Now she felt as if the world around her was buzzing and she wasn’t sure she wanted to turn it all back on. The buzzing suited her just fine.

It wasn’t until she felt Adrian’s body heat that she shook herself free of the daze. “You always did pride yourself in theatrics.” Rose wished she felt as comfortable as he looked. Adrian was clearly in his element at the moment. His entire aura screamed a kind of serenity that she begged to possess. How could someone who spent so long fighting madness, not seem mad at all in comparison to her? Rose felt like she was losing her mind every second of every day, and she couldn’t even blame the darkness that she used to steal from Lissa’s mind.

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going? Or are we going to play a guessing game. I’m not much in the mood for a game, but I’m sure I can spit out a few answers.” Rose’s elbow leaned against the car door as her head was turned towards Adrian. Her shaking hand held her head upright.

[rosehasaway]

ravishinavodka:

It wasn’t her words that truly shook him, nor the sincerity in them, it was the urgency he felt when her hand closed tightly around his, gripping it as though she were holding on to the last thing that might tether her to this earth. It was the kind of desperate strength with which he’d grabbed bottles and paintbrushes and cigarettes, with which he still grabbed at anything that made him feel even a little bit whole. 

“Okay,” he agreed, his voice faraway, and then repeated the word more steadily with a sharp nod of his head. He held on to her hand right back. “Come on, we’re leaving—just for a little bit,” he added hastily, sure she would protest that she couldn’t leave Lissa for long. “But we can’t be here.” 

When his heart had been shattered, he’d seen his world filled with ghosts. Here, they’d shared a conversation. There, they’d kissed. His past had lived to haunt him in every room they’d entered together, and he knew even without the maddening effects of Spirit to hasten her hurt, Rose wouldn’t be able to escape her memories of Dimitri so long as they stayed here in the heart of Court. 

“How sneaky can you be, Little Dhampir?” he asked, some of the familiar glint of trouble returning to his eyes. 

Rose felt her entire body relax at his agreement. She felt like a puddle. For so long she had been screaming at herself to make a decision, and now that she had, now that she had someone helping her stay the course, it felt like the entire earth lifted off of her shoulders. Like she had grown a few inches higher. Of course, that wasn’t the case, and she still hovered at her same height, with puffy red eyes, and a nose that refused to quit running.

She gave a small watery smile. “I’m the one that trained my entire life to kill Strigoi, Adrian.” And that was all she had to say. Maybe stealth wasn’t the main tool that they used, but she knew how to control her body. Each movement she made was calculated for the maximum amount of efficiency and damage, and if there was one person that could get by anywhere unseen, it was Rose. Maybe she was used to drawing attention, and in a Palace filled with Moroi, eyes snapped to her quickly.

But she could sneak. She could draw herself in, and blend into the stone around her if that is what it took to cut the line. To break the invisible bond that had connected her for so many years. She refused to call it a shackle, never wanting to see Dimitri or their relationship in that light, but a tether? That could be cut without a second thought.

Rose’s hand produced more pressure, and then her hand relaxed in his, happy that for once she wasn’t the one making the decisions. Making the plans. For these moments she handed her life over, and while a few months ago she never would have thought they she would have been there, with him, in a room with no light, and tears streaking down her face--it seemed fitting.

[rosehasaway]

ravishinavodka:

With every word she spoke Adrian felt more and more certain that he was the sole audience to a secret premiere that Rose had been preparing for some time, and that knowledge at once broke him and kept him going. At the end of the day, she was his friend, and the hurt she felt hurt him too. He couldn’t be happy for Dimitri’s pain, and what Rose’s admission meant for her relationship with Dimitri, because more than his want to see this man he loathed suffer was his want to see Rose happy. 

He hadn’t noticed himself growing up, but taking a step back now he supposed in many ways he had. 

She was right. When you knew a person and saw them hurt, you couldn’t help but love them. Just like he loved her now. “Is this it?” he asked, knowing that both the question and the answer weren’t as simple as they sounded. A relationship didn’t end because of one fight, or even because of many. Nor did it end overnight, or with a breakup if that’s what it came to. They were messy, tangled things from which it took many tries to come loose from. Even when taking scissors to them, usually —sometimes months later even— there would always be a loose string, a tiny knot left somewhere to pick at. 

But he had to know if she had the end of the rope in her hands and was ready to start undoing the knot. He had to know if she needed him to hand her the sheers or tell her to set down the ones she’d already picked up. Because now, for the first time since she’d broke his heart, he thought he would be capable of doing either. Whichever she needed.

Is this it?

Rose felt the words echo into eternity. Was this it? All of this time the words jumped from her lips as if she was trying to escape a sinking ship, and she hadn’t stopped to even look back. She was too busy rowing her dingy away to even give the boat a chance. Maybe that should have been her answer. Of course this was it. Her eyes didn’t even want to turn back anymore, didn’t want to see any destruction or chaos. Rose just wanted peace. To move on. To patch up the holes that she partially caused, and start a new life on a deserted island with her small life boat.

“I can’t--I can’t do it anymore,” Her voice cracked at the admission, and tears started flowing freely. Never before had Rose felt so small, so completely and utterly helpless as if she wasn’t the one pulling the plug. She was the maker of her own noose, and yet somehow she managed to play both roles equally as well. But a decision had to be made. And it hurt. It was supposed to hurt.

“If I go back there to him right now, he’s going to touch the small of my back, and he’s going to whipser Roza in my ear, and then I’ll be 17 again. 17 and stupid and naive, and desperate to impress my teacher.” The tears were running quickly down her cheeks, and she didn’t bother trying to wipe them away. Even when snot started to form in her nose, as if that was anyway helpful for the situation, she didn’t flinch.

Her voice shook. “You can’t let me do it, Adrian. I know that isn’t fair of me to ask. I should have just run to find Lissa--” But if Lissa had been here instead of Adrian, somehow Rose knew that her opinion on this matter would slip. That Lissa would speak for Dimitri, even more than Adrian had, and would vouch that maybe Rose just needed a few more months. A few months, and then she could decide if a family was in their future.

Rose suddenly moved towards Adrian, and grabbed onto his hand hard. She couldn’t know whether it was meant to anchor herself, or a forceful plea for help. The tears rushed onward, but her voice was stronger. “Don’t let me go back.”

[rosehasaway]

ravishinavodka:

He was surprised how quickly and forcefully her secrets spilled from her mouth, like water rushing through a crack in a dam that could hold itself together no longer. There was always the thing that pushed a person too far so that they couldn’t return. There was always the one facsimile of an inch that either kept the water in or let it flow out; imperceptible as the difference was it changed everything. Watching her now, he was struck with the realization that this had been that moment for her. Like an onlooker to one of the wonders of the world, he felt equally in awe and terrified that such a thing should exist. 

“And I take it that’s what you tried to explain to him,” Adrian finished, nodding towards the door as if gesturing to the argument somehow. “So he took it well then?” The glib huff of a laugh he produced sounded as wrong as it felt. 

Adrian squared his shoulders, settling into his sincerity. “I know it’s hard, people wanting things from you that you can’t give them.” He thought of his father, the expectations and the looks of disgust when Adrian didn’t meet them. It might have seemed to everyone looking in through the glass that it’d be simple to do what was asked of him with a little effort. Show up, show up sober, act your age, act your station, be respectful. Not so hard on paper, just like having a child with your significant other—when you already have admitted you’d like to have one eventually—doesn’t seem so hard on paper. 

But people aren’t paper, and the will of the heart is not so easily penned by another’s hand. 

“Do you think he’ll ever understand?” He spoke quickly before she could answer. “And I’m not asking angry, battle-ready Dhampir Rose. I’m asking you,” —he pointed to his own chest, at his heart which was already steeling itself against the ache of what he was about to say— “the one who loves him. Come on, Rose. He turned Strigoi and you believed you could work that out. What about this? He’s changed now more than he did then?” He couldn’t believe he was really asking this, reasoning with her almost in Dimitri’s favor. Maybe it was the sliver of hope that had still risen in his chest hearing the couple’s heated tones, and those intrusive, happy thoughts about what might be if Rose and Dimitri were no more. Maybe it was that hope, and his need to kill it for his own sanity, that pressed him to ask. 

Rose stopped walking, especially as she appreciated the irony of Adrian trying to see things from a different perspective. One that wasn’t beneficial to him in any way at all. He had changed. The Adrian she first met, when he was the one with the cigarette, there was nothing he would have said to give Dimitri the benefit of the doubt. Adrian had been brutally honest then, especially when it came to Rose’s then infatuation. But now? Now he was the voice of reason.

“I liked that he had been a Strigoi.” The words seemed to tumble out of her mouth like everything else was lately. As if she had been slipped a truth serum and the only thing left was to spill her guts out for the world to see. “I liked that I was with someone who had managed to turn Strigoi, and then turn back. Do you know how thrilling that is? How thrilling it is to know that you’ve saved someone from something worse than death? Sure, it was different, and hard, and he had changed. But maybe he hadn’t changed, not really. Or maybe the person he is now he the same person he was before and I was just blinded to it.”

She took a deep breath. “I don’t think either of us want to understand, not really.” It wasn’t their stubborn personalities tearing them apart, it was the basic human instinct that knew that something was wrong, something irreperable. Something far greater than anything like a miscommunication. Rose and Dimitri simply weren’t it. They had plenty of things that would keep most people together. There was plenty of love, and trust. There was even a shared human, and a shared understanding of what it meant to be a guardian. Many would never understand what it was like to kill your first Strigoi. But they both knew that too. They knew that the marks on their necks were not for honor, but for remembrance and humanity.

They were partners. Just not life partners.

“I’m always going to love him. When you know a person well enough, and you see the things that make them hurt, I don’t think it’s possible to stop loving them, even if it’s only those small parts.” The cigarette burned to Rose’s fingers without her noticing, and she quickly dropped the paper turned ash. 

It was then that Rose looked at Adrian again, surprised at how good it felt to be free of it all. Not her relationship, no, her words. Her thoughts. None of which she wanted to burden Lissa with. She may have been her best friend, but if there was one thing Rose would always do, it was protect Lissa, even if that meant keeping her personal life a secret.

[rosehasaway]

ravishinavodka:

“You need a cigarette?” His brows arced high on his forehead and he let out a low whistle. “Little Dhampir, I don’t think I know you at all.” He was shaking his head, but from his pocket he procured the pack and tapped a smartly rolled cigarette out from the opening, offering it towards her to take as she pleased. His lighter was already emitting a steady flame in his other hand, waiting for her to lean into it and breathe the cig to life. 

Since she’d already called him on his bullshit, he figured there was no harm in admitting the truth now. In fact, there was probably more harm in denying it, where Rose was concerned. He couldn’t help but imagine her fist connecting with his arm in a swift, painful motion should he test her patience, and thought it best to avoid that. Even now he fought the urge to gingerly rub his arm, as if the thought alone had caused injury. 

“I may have caught a choice word or two,” he admitted. “I forgot how colorful your vocabulary can get. Artistry, really. It would make a good painting.” Adrian’s eyes unfocused for a moment in the dark room, and suddenly he was somewhere else, a smattering of paint on the walls in dark reds and the purples of a fresh bruise. He felt himself falling, falling into those colors and they called him further into their song, the way it looked exactly how Rose’s heated voice had sounded echoing in the Palace’s acoustics. When the flame from the lighter had burned for too long, heating the metal teeth of its mouth and singeing his finger, Adrian was brought back to the dark room. He hissed away the pain, nearly dropping the lighter before recovering and slipping it back into his pocket.

“Trouble in paradise?” His mind latched onto the cliche, and the words tumbled from his mouth as the most coherent thing he could produce. He felt as thought he were stepping through a dream into wakefulness, one foot still planted firmly in a cloud. 

Rose grabbed the cigarette, not bothering to respond, just eager to light it. She had always been against smoking. It wasn’t exactly conducive to her health, and considering the fact that she made her living off of being in shape and being healthy--smoking wasn’t at the top of her list. In this moment, however, she couldn’t give a damn about anything. To hell with her lungs. To hell with it all. Every was already crumbling, so why did it still hurt so much?

She sucked the smoke in, coughing once it hit her esophagus. Her inexperience showed, but she plowed through, taking another drag, and refusing to contemplate things any further.

It was his comments that dragged her back. “Ah yes, I can see it now. The Avenging Angel, fallen at last. Poetic isn’t it? All of those pretty artistic words I used to spend on you, and now Dimitri finally got his fair share. I’m sure he’s thinking about paintings as well. Maybe you can even teach him.” She laughed bitterly, with a slightly unhinged feeling. Rose was the most dangerous in these circumstances--not becase of any damage she could do physically, but the choices she made when under emotional duress.

“He doesn’t stop.” She paused immediately, wondering if this was really such a good idea, but after everything that had happened, she couldn’t keep it bottled up anymore. “He doesn’t stop pressing issues, even after I’ve made it clear on my end that I don’t want the things that he does. He doesn’t ever fucking stop. And even if his mouth is shut, I can feel his eyes on me, questioning, wondering, begging even. For a while I thought it was just because of me. Because I didn’t want those things--but it’s him.”

“He looks different now. He looks older, and his face seemes wider. Sometimes he even looks fuzzy to me, and it isn’t my eyesight. I think I worshipped him. I think I would’ve kissed the fucking ground that he walked on, and as soon as I realized that he wasn’t a Saint, he changed. I no longer saw a future, I just saw what used to be there, and it was good. It used to be good. Now it’s just, it’s just exhausting. Frustrating. Something, I don’t know.” She threw her hands up, an ash from her cigarette singeing her arm, but Rose never flinched from it.

Rose moved, feeling the need to walk, to do something. “I do want kids, you know--” She said over her shoulder. “--mostly so I can at least be a better mother than my own. It took me a while to figure it out. But Dimitri and I are on different timelines. He wants everything right now. Right this moment. I’m done pretending I can do that anymore.”

[rosehasaway]

ravishinavodka:

Like everyone else in the Palace, Adrian—or his ears, rather—had bore witness to whatever lovers tryst had just transpired between Rose and Dimitri. From the sounds of it, it hadn’t been the first and it wouldn’t be the last. This surprised him, but what surprised him more was that it didn’t bring him any joy. Once, the idea of Rose and Dimitri fighting would have sparked some kind of hope in him, or even worse would have played into his own admittedly petty satisfactions. 

When all he felt at their argument was nothing, or something very close to it and erring more on the side of empathy than victory, he was confused. 

This surprise is what pulled him to slip into a deserted room, now pondering his thoughts over a cigarette instead of keeping to his original path and seeking out trouble for the sake of trouble. So struck by her entrance was he that he couldn’t immediately speak up. Instead, he gave a funny look towards the ceiling. He wasn’t sure he believed in fate or God or whatever it was people chalked coincidence up to, but he gave that formless, omniscient being a confused state nonetheless. Just in case it was real and it was watching. 

“No need to stab me yet,” Adrian answered, hopping off the dusty table he’d been leaning against and walking nearer to her. “I haven’t even had the chance to say anything offensive yet.” 

He put out his cigarette on the floor. Someone would clean it later. Or, on second thought, maybe they wouldn’t considering the state of neglect this room seemed to be kept in. It was no matter to him now. 

“And I can hardly believe I missed a show. Nothing interesting goes on in these walls unless I’m causing trouble, and since I’ve clearly been occupied in here… I won’t say it’s impossible, but the word improbable comes to mind.” 

From the way she looked, he thought it best not to mention he (and everyone else) had heard almost everything. And it had, in fact, been quite a show. 

Usually the sight of Adrian elicited an immediate response--whether it be anger or annoyance, Rose could never be sure. Yet in this case she didn’t feel up to daring him with any reply, or trying to figure out what the fuck was going on between them. It was exhausting. All of it. Not all of it was his fault either. No one could be blamed for their presence, and Rose had been humbled plenty of times in her life to realize that her own problems shouldn’t be projected onto other people.

“Why’d you put your cigarette out the one time I actually need it?” Rose slipped her stake back under her pants, attaching it firmly so as not to lose anything else. Her dignity was already long gone, and even though the yelling had been somewhat severe, there was no real reason why her voice felt so hoarse. Voiceless, Dimitriless, cigaretteless. For some reason it was the lack of a cigarette between her fingers that bothered her.

She turned to look at him for the first time, and although the room was plenty dark, his frame was hard to miss, and his chiseled features were impossible to ignore. How did he demand so much attention with nothing more than a few muscles moving under his skin? 

“Cut the shit, Adrian. You’ve got Moroi senses, and unless you’ve cut your ears off recently--just give me a cigarette. Please.”

Rose held her hand out, although there was no eagerness to the action. No tell tale sign that she was itching for the nicotine. She wasn’t an addict, she was someone trying to come to terms with an addiction that had nothing to do with drugs at all. It was melancholy and memories, and Rose never knew you could be addicted to the sweet smell of the past. But she was. She ached for simpler, yet more dangerous times. She ached for feeling useful, and free, and full of purpose. Now she simply ached for a cigarette. For the smoke to engulf her lungs and fill her with something new.

[rosehasaway]

@ravishinavodka

 ( Why are you still here then, Rose? Just go. Just go. )

She knew everyone was talking about it--the large explosion. Usually that would’ve been a literal thing, but these days, in times of peace, the only weaponry that ever seemed to misfire was words. And usually--if not always--it was Rose’s drama that seemed to be at the forefront of it all. Ground zero. She couldn’t help it. Partially because she herself loved the attention, as much as she wished she didn’t, and partially because there was nothing more interesting to most people than the love lives of other people.

This time the fight was worse than usual. Dimitri had quietly brought up their future, about adopting, or even finding a surrogate. Rose was going to let it slide like she usually did, and chalk it up to Dimitri stumbling upon a child, and deciding that maybe he should ask once more. But then he pressed on. And he kept pressing. With every word, Rose became twisted, like a spring tightly coiled and ready to pop. There had been a time when the thought of a family wouldn’t have felt so ridiculous and wrong, but right now? Right now it made her unreasonably angry, as if it was an offense to her. Maybe it was. A child would mean an entirely different life--one where one of them would have to give up their jobs, and she couldn’t picture anyone telling Dimitri to set his career aside.

Or maybe it was just the simple fact that family was very much a foreign concept to Rose. A mother and a father together? Their child being raised by both of them? It felt like a fairytale, one that had been twisted a long time ago into something that almost seemed like a nightmare.

But there was something else besides her fear and hesitation. There was Dimitri himself. They hadn’t had sex for a few weeks, and Rose knew it wasn’t because of exhaustion. They had always managed it perfectly fine before. No, it was because of the words that both of them refused to say, because admitting it would be like admitting everything they had done up until now had been for nothing. And what were either of them without the years of struggle? None of it was fair. Leaving Dimitri would feel like cutting off a part of herself, but staying with him felt like suffocating.

Adrian just added to the problem, and while Rose knew it was no fault of his own, him being at the Palace had changed things. It wasn’t an immediate change, but a gradual one. Dimitri had noticed. He always noticed things like that, like Rose staring at the annoying royal for a bit too long, or the way her eyes lit up every time Adrian threw a snarky comment her way. He told her as much during the argument. Nothing was more frustrating than having someone else see the things that you couldn’t.

Rose proceeded to do the most Rose thing possible--she ran. Not far of course, especially considering that Lissa was near and Rose never wanted her friend out of her sight. She did, however, manage to find an abandoned room, one that clearly wasn’t being used as evidenced by the inches of dust that covered everything. Somehow, it felt peaceful. Maybe it was the way the night threw itself into the corners, making her feel invisible, or perhaps it was the knowledge that at least Dimitri wouldn’t find her here. At least she could finally have a moment for herself, one that didn’t revolve around a slowly shrinking future.

It was then that Rose heard a noise, and her entire body tensed as she scrambled for the silver steak that she always carried on her leg.

“Who’s there?” She said, her voice quiet, yet firm. “If you’re here for a show, then you just missed it.”

[rosehasaway]

ravishinavodka:

In the moment that the walls fell away from around them and their surroundings opened up into the outside world, Adrian sensed that it wasn’t just the walls of the apartment dissolving, but some of Rose’s well constructed barriers as well. He had walked enough dreams to understand that the subconscious was a clever bastard with a love for symbolism, and that in dreams the mind often traveled to the places that the conscious no longer dared to wander. 

Under the light of a lamppost, Adrian toed a pebble on the road’s blacktop before giving it a light kick and watching it skip away into the dark, the sound of it growing farther and father away just like the sound of Rose’s voice in his head as she recounted her feelings for Dimitri. 

“I knew,” he admitted, his voice coming through to him like an echo underwater. It felt like a decade had passed before he could tear his eyes away from the vacant spot the pebble had disappeared to, and a century more before his eyes finally focused on Rose’s face again. He had known, and he’d reached for her anyway, his outstretched hands closing around nothing except for the air where she had been. Always just out of reach. Did that make him stupid for continuing to try, or smarter than some for at least understanding there was competition? 

Adrian felt his mind caving in on itself, the void beginning to grow and swallow his sanity. Somewhere in his head he knew it was because he had awoken the Spirit magic in him for too long to visit her tonight, but the void was eating away quickly at that recognition. He couldn’t leave it like this though. A small light in the dark flickered, in his mind he reached out to grasp at the edge of sanity. He wanted to climb out this time. He had to. And just like that, like the tide receding, he felt at once safe from the dangerous pull of drowning in darkness. 

“We should do this again sometime.” When he spoke now the words reverberated in his chest and he knew for certain that they were his and they were real. No Spirit fantasies, no puppet strings of madness. “There’s just something more fun about talking to you when it’s not quuuuite allowed.” He gave her a heavy look, and in the building behind them on the street a bedroom light turned on and a stocky frame came to the window. Faceless, voiceless, but familiar… Adrian felt certain Rose would recognize him as the man she was, in another world, currently laying next to. “I can come visit again, right?” The flippancy in his tone suggested it was less of a question and more of a suggestion that he would be back soon. Maybe not tomorrow. Perhaps not the next day. Certainly not when she expected. But between this Spirit meeting and the next, even if they came face to face before that, she’d be thinking about him. At least— he hoped. His tongue slid between his lips. 

A brief glance at a Dimitri-like figure in the window, and Rose didn’t feel up for much of anything besides a damn nice cry. How long had it been since she had allowed herself that luxury? To cry without any reason, or with all the reason in the world. She knew it wasn’t meant to hurt, only tease, but her defenses were down, or at least, weakened in her dream state. “Stop it,” Rose warned, knowing it was pointless trying to tell Adrian what to do. He was his own person, very much capable of his own thoughts, and telling him what to do was almost as ridiculous as someone telling her what to do.

“Don’t, just--don’t.” She was tired, in every sense of the word, and the matters of her heart were the least of her concern. 

Rose gathered herself up, arms hugging her body in a slightly defensive position. “There’s nothing wrong with catching up with an old friend, Adrian. You can’t make me feel guilty about that.” But she was wrong. Rose already felt guilty, and Adrian had never wanted to just be her friend. Things were never that gloriously simply--that agonizingly easy.

“The next time you want to talk to me, how about you actually try to do it face to face. Maybe even with other people present. You might reconsider where you put that tongue then.”

And then Rose was gone. Disappeared. The dream vanished and while she could remember the event happening, it all felt like something that had happened in a place between places. A dream within a dream. If that didn’t accurately sum up Adrian as a person, her sleeping brain didn’t know what could. But instead of pondering it any longer, she let the lightness of the day pull her into a trance, and her body, usually rigid in a response to the fight reflex, finally went limp.

[rosehasaway]

ravishinavodka:

“My deepest apologies,” he replied, flowery and laden in silky charm. “Next time I’ll add the threat of a fist to punctuate.” His brows rose in a question, as if to ask if this would satisfy her. 

Adrian’s mind wondered before he could catch it; it wondered back to teasing Sydney in a way that seemed almost cruel now that he recalled her deep blushes and exasperated huffs of breath; it wondered to the look of unwavering belief in her eyes when she spoke about the things she believed in, and that same look that bore into him when she spoke about him healing himself; it wondered to their laughter echoing in tandem, and the night’s (though few) that he’d spent sober in her company. Could that have brought them both happiness if he’d have stayed longer? If he hadn’t accidentally ran Jill’s life off of it’s tracks while crashing his own course? “I think she’s already happy,” he answered, more for his benefit than to add to the conversation. And I’m not, yet. 

Anyone else might have offered some condolences for Rose’s loss, but Adrian couldn’t find the words, and even if he could have he had learned enough about grief and pain of the soul to know a few pretty words of sympathy couldn’t ease any of the hurt. Instead he opted to be a smartass. “Not a single thing wrong with him? I beg to differ. You just said he loved you, so… there’s one thing right off the bat.” Adrian had only met Mason briefly, but he thought the deceased party might even laugh about it. Especially knowing it was as much a commentary on Adrian’s own problems as it was a well-meaning jab at Mason, and even Rose. 

“Is that how you think about you and-” He found that he still choked uncomfortably on the name. “And him? Ridiculous teenage fantasies?” Yes, he was baiting her. His sly smile admitted that he knew it. But even so, genuine curiosity set in. He didn’t think he could imagine describing a love he was still in as a fantasy. In the midst of a storm, everything felt real. 

“That will do just fine,” Rose answered, eyes rolling in conjunction. He was still just as ridiculous and over-dramatic as he had always been.

Sydney was happy. Sydney was happy but he wasn’t. Why did all of this have to be so damn similar? A cyclical movement of people trying to find happiness but never knowing for sure where it was. Since when was something that sounded so simple so fucking complicated. Smiles seemed harder to produce these days, even in a much more stable climate. Where once everyone seemed carefree, now there was responsibility, and duty--barriers that but blocks on happiness in favor of a job. Being a kid had been simpler, even being a teenager had been simpler. Love grew and melted in moments. One day you found the love of your life, and the next someone else held your fancy. Now everything was twisted and obscured. Love felt solid, and fleeting. Necessary and annoying.

“Shut up, Adrian. We both know that isn’t what I meant,” Rose knew he was kidding, but the words cut a bit too deep for her liking. It had been a fault on Mason’s part. Had he just been a bit smarter maybe he wouldn’t have even bothered with her at all. Mason would have been alive if he had been a little bit less in love, and a little bit less like her. Searching for glory no matter the costs. 

Her fingers found her hair once more as she played with a thick group, twirling it into faux curls that only a curling iron could give her. There was comfort in having something to hold onto. Something stable in such an unstable thing as a dream. Dreams changed within a moments notice, and before she could stop it they were outside of the apartment, in the middle of the road. The first place she ever saw Dimitri Belikov.

Rose turned on him. “At the time, yes, yes it was stupid and ridiculous and I can admit that. He was something hard I could lean on. Something I had only ever gotten from Lissa, but Lissa always seemed to need me a bit more than I needed her. I never wanted to burden her. Dimitri took the burdens, and they always seemed so light on him. So do I acknowledge that liking him when I was 17 was just as reckless as every other thing I had done before then, and after then--yes. I’m not an idiot, I know how stupid I looked. How everyone had to have known, well, except Mason. Fuck, even you knew Adrian. You probably knew from the moment you saw me look at him.”

[rosehasaway]

ravishinavodka:

He studied her words, unconvinced of their truthfulness. Adrian — pretty, rich Adrian; Moroi Adrian; words not weapons Adrian could not speak to the hand prints that the people you killed left on your body. Sure, he had seen death more intimately than some and more often than anyone could hope, but those deaths hadn’t been at his hands. He could, however, speak to what he knew of Dhampirs and their training, their purpose. And what he knew told him Rose likely saw the things she’d done as duty, and as a necessary evil.  After all, most of those deaths were Strigoi, and they were the purest form of evil out there. Which only meant something else choked her. Adrian wasn’t sure he was ready to know what it was, and so he let his own demons pull back his tongue. 

Her next words struck him as perplexing, thought he couldn’t quite place why. Perhaps because a normal response might have been him echoing his own remorse for his and Sydney’s non-relationship, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t sorry it went wrong, only that it had ever begun. “It was bound to,” he shrugged, knowing that in saying as much he was shifting responsibility for their demise onto fate’s shoulders to unburden his own. “I might have very few morals, but even I knew it would be crossing a line to let someone as good as Sage piss her own beliefs away just to be with someone who couldn’t make those sacrifices worth it.” 

As quickly as his lessened coordination allowed for, he pointed at Rose. “And before you say something like ‘Oh Adrian,’” his voice shot up several octaves, “’you’re worth the sacrifice to someone,’ let me clarify that I’m not disagreeing with that, I just wasn’t all-in, and if she was going to defy some deep rooted Alchemist faith she should at least do it for someone who knew if they were going to stick around. They kidnapped her, for fuck’s sake.”

A sigh and a shrug later, Adrian had lost some of his light spirit surrounding the topic. He tried not to think too often about why Sydney had been taken by the Alchemists. He found if he focused more on him eventually bringing her back to safety and that being the last memory he had of her, it felt less like guilt had found its old nest in his body and moved back in. “Besides, it’s not like she was heartbroken over things not working out, so…” He thought about her golden hair, her buttoned blouses, her straight posture and the quiet strength that lay not in her fists but in her stoic perseverance, and then he thought the inevitable followup: would he even have been able to tell if her heart was broken? He would’t. Not if she didn’t want him to. 

“And anyway, I think you’re bullshitting me.” Where he had begun to slouch under the weight of alcohol’s influence, Adrian now sat straight and powerful. “You know as well as I did what a nightmare me and Sage would have ended in. I know she picks at your nerves, but you have a soft spot for the girl, straight-laced as she is. I don’t believe you really hope it would have gone right enough to go wrong for her later. Er,” his face crumpled, “more wrong.”  

“I wasn’t go to say that at all. I was going to say that you’re an annoying pain in the ass.” Her hair whipped behind her in a steady defiance of expectations. “That’s a shitty impression of me, too. Not nearly threatening enough in my personal experience.” Still, Rose tried to listen. Tried not to read too far into things, nor picture anything happening either.

It was true that Sydney and Rose had an interesting dichotomy. They were complete opposites. Rose rarely went by the book, her bold personality and unwillingness to play nice with others often led her into dangerous and unnecessarily reckless situations. Sydney, on the other hand, was a notorious stickler to the rules. She was firm in her beliefs, and rarely wavered unless she found it to be necessary to do so. They were, by all definitions, unlikely to get along very well. But they did. Not as best friends, nor sisters, but as two people who came to a deep understanding as to what the other person was, and what they were trying to do.

“Sounds to me like you’re just bullshitting yourself. Giving more and more excuses as to why you never should’ve went there. That doesn’t mean I can’t be sorry for it. Both of you deserve some sort of happiness, and if that came from being with each other, then so be it.” Rose thought of Dimitri as a strigoi, and the impossibility of a relationship when he was no longer a Dhampir. What would she have done had he never come back from that state? Could she too have simply walked away? No. She wouldn’t have. Even with a kidnapping, Rose wasn’t sure she would’ve let anything get in her way, which either meant that she was truly as insane as everyone had said. Or there was just a different intensity in feelings between what she had felt for Dimitri, and what Adrian felt for Sydney.

Leaning back, Rose stared that the ceiling. In her old apartment it would’ve been littered with cobwebs and smoke stains from the previous tenants. Now it was clear, with only the startlingly deep black night sky staring down at her. “My friend Mason, sometimes he still chokes me. I still remember going with him, he just so badly wanted to become a good Guardian, and he wanted to find who was attacking in the Moroi. And they just--he died right in front of me. The idiot was trying to come save me and he gets his neck snapped, and I can’t do anything. He loved me you know. There wasn’t a single thing wrong with him and I couldn’t give him the attention he deserved because I was so wrapped up in my ridiculous teenage fantasies about my teacher. I thought myself more mature than him, than anyone my age. So self-important. I protected Lissa for all that time by myself, I could take away her bad thoughts. I had to be important. Instead I watched one of my best friends die, and the only thing I got from that was a few marks on my neck.”

Rose took a deep breath, willing the sky to swallow her whole.

[rosehasaway]

ravishinavodka:

“It doesn’t,” he agreed with a soft, conceding nod. “But what I’m saying is that whether it lasts one more year or for an eternity, I know that the only person I’d want to be with —really be with, not just a fling or a fuck or a distraction— is the person I’d stand up with in front of my friends and proclaim idiotically that I want it to last forever. Because even if I end up being wrong, and believe me, with my track record I would be, at least I felt it once.” He stared at her from across the table, contemplating many things then; the curve of her eyelashes, the ebb and flow of her aura, the way she smelled, how she lingered in his mind. And he asked himself the most important question: had he ever felt that for her? In all of his love and his heartbreak and his madness, had he ever felt Stand At The Altar love for Rose Hathaway? 

No. No, he hadn’t. He had felt the fever of a young yearning, he had gone weak in its heat, and blind. He had fainted into obsession, and burdened by it had lost all ability to love. He could not have loved her, because he wanted so badly to be loved by her. He could not have loved her, because he was absorbed by the idea it might cure him of the very affliction it bestowed upon him. He could not have loved her. 

But now, here, having stepped out of love with her, he could. The very idea of it made his head ache. He could love her now because he had loved her wrong before. He could love her now because he didn’t love her anymore. 

Adrian, bypassing the glasses completely, reached for the bottle and stole a generous chug. 

He forgot the cards where they lay on the table, too busy being comforted by her willingness to admit he might be a bad person. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t.  But something ached less inside of him knowing that she recognized that now when she had been so quick to disagree however long ago they had argued for the last time. “What strangles you, Little Dhampir?” Something had crept into him, something gray and curious. Not quite dark, not quite light. He knew the hands he wore around his own throat, the fingers that he felt choking him even as he laughed his loudest. “What do you carry around your neck?” Without thinking, he raised his arm from the table, his fingertips just grazing the skin stretched across her collarbone. It was so soft and so brief that it might not have happened at all. It might have only been a memory. It might have only been a dream.

The dream alcohol wasn’t working. Not even a smidge. Rose knew that clearly because as Adrian spoke she felt a deep nauseous feeling building in her stomach. She wasn’t willing to do that. She didn’t even have to think about it longer to know whether or not she was undecided. The answer on marrying Dimitri was, and always would be, a no. The reasoning for that was always murkier than she ever wanted it to be. Of course she loved him. From the age of seventeen until now, Rose had loved Dimitri. With all of the doubt in her mind and in her world, he had always been there. A quiet driving force. Time had been spent fetching him from disaster, rehabilitating him, regrowing. And now it was an emptiness. As if time had been stolen, not gained. No. She wouldn’t stand anywhere and proclaim her undying love. Not when she felt as if her very life was being sucked into his vortex of expectations. Of need. Where Rose wanted adventure, Dimitri was looking to settle down. Where Rose wanted to enjoy her youth, Dimitri’s was escaping him with each passing moment.

Her eyes had been cast downward towards the floor as she silently counted the now appearing floor tiles, trying to will herself not to say anything more. Already she felt her skin peeling back, layer by layer, and Adrian had to do nothing more than be there with her--his presence soaking her skin and forcing her to transform. 

Rose felt him before she heard him. A light touch along her collarbone and she felt like she might burst. Nerves had bundled themselves under her skin, and she felt like a ticking time bomb. One wrong move and her mouth would explode open with even more useless and ridiculous words. Time spent learning to stop and think once and a while being completely forgotten. 

“The people I’ve seen die. The people I’ve killed. Isn’t that enough to choke anyone?” Except that wasn’t enough to choke Rose. That was what she knew, what she could handle. Of course it got to her, especially at first. Now it all seemed so procedural, another mark to the back of her neck. Just someone doing their job. But what she did to him? That was digging into her trachea, crushing her wind pipe. She had been stupid, and blindly in love, and the only thing she really knew how to use effectively besides her fists had been him. Adrian. Around at the best possible time for her, and worst possible time for himself. A perfect cacophony for an impending doom.

Thick black hair flew into her face as she hastily tried to compose herself. She really should have worn it up more often, if only for practicality, but in times like these her hair felt like some sort of shield against the world. One wall between the truth and a lie. “I’m sorry it went so wrong with you and Sydney.”

[rosehasaway]

ravishinavodka:

He smiled a little to himself, accepting the truth in her statement. He hadn’t really meant what he’d said after all, it had just been him grabbing at a chance to let out a minuscule amount of the bitter poison that still lurked in his veins from the wound she’d left in him. But he didn’t think he felt any better for letting it out. Maybe he’d bled all of the poison from him already without realizing it, and now he was just cutting open wounds that had already healed simply out of habit. He stretched his back against the chair, as if he were growing in the sunlight. 

Inclining his head as if to acknowledge her point, Adrian considered Rose’s words and found he disagreed not just for the sake of argument. “Sure, you can.” He sounded skeptical. “But it’s different. A ring, a ceremony, some vows… That’s what’s saying we’re nuts and we believe in this. Otherwise, you’re admitting that there’s some part of you that still acknowledges your relationship might be impermanent. It is a claim, you’re right. That’s what I’m saying. But a lack of a ring is a claim too. Probably the smarter claim, but a claim all the same.” 

There was something that comforted him about her eagerness to distance herself from marriage. Just as he’d said that taking vows were admitting you had hope, Rose’s disinterest in making those vows to Dimitri gave Adrian hope that something in Rose’s heart thought of them as… less than forever. 

He was smiling when she flipped the card, and his grin didn’t waver as he gulped down another shot, now certainly beginning to feel the effects. So much so that the words that slipped past his lips surprised even him. 

“I’ve done a lot of stupid things I should regret,” he admitted, head hanging. He had been so ready to look her in the eye like a challenge through this whole game, but he couldn’t. “But I don’t. Maybe there’s something wrong with me, you know? I don’t feel the things I should, and the things I shouldn’t….” He didn’t need to finish the sentence to know she would understand what he meant. “The only thing I can really say I felt right is how much guilt I have for sleeping with Sage.” 

Adrian gestured vaguely. “Look at me,” his voice was small, a bird’s heartbeat. “She deserved a lot better than me using her like a lifeboat.” 

“Permanence doesn’t depend on some idiotic ceremony in front of your friends.”

She didn’t want to admit that she was riled up, but it sounded like an argument she had been having with Dimitri for a year now. Getting married is symbolic of our love! It’s a celebration! All of our friends could be there. Each word felt like a pinprick. Something unnatural that she didn’t want to partake in. Why did everyone bother with it at all? Couldn’t people just be happy with the way things were--with less intense titles and more relaxed relationships? The pressure, Rose was no stranger to it, crept up on her in a way she had never expected before. Maybe because she never thought she would be so against it all. Now it was just a line drawn into the sand.

The tone in Adrian’s voice changed immediately, as did his entire body language. Where once he was blooming, now it looked as if he had collapsed upon himself. Rose knew then that she was in trouble. Any person with a brain could handle cocky, arrogant, spoiled Adrian. But this one? The one with no vibrato and plenty of guilt, this was the one that made her hands clench, and her face grow warm. Her heart might have pumped more quickly too, but suddenly it was in her throat, choking her. Rose’s intuition had been right. Sydney and Adrian. Adrian and Sydney. None of it should have been a surprise. They were both--well--them. Any amount of time spent with anyone was enough to feel at least the slightest of attractions.

The real kicker, however, was not her pang of jealousy, but the immediate spike of curiosity. Why had he been using her? Why was he drowning? Rose already knew about his vices, how alcohol and smoking kept him at least more stable than he’d be without. Medication, some might call it. There was a difference between self-medicating and using someone else. Rose had plenty experience with the using someone part.

“You’re not a bad person, there’s nothing wrong with you,” she started slowly, trying to choose her words carefully, something she rarely took the time out to do. “Or maybe you are, maybe there is. But if that makes you a bad person, then I’m even worse. Everyone does stupid things. I’m not saying we should excuse it, but, isn’t it enough punishment sometimes to be that guilty? To know you did something unforgivable and carry that around with you? To have it strangle you even when you think you’re the happiest?” By that moment Rose’s voice grew desperate, trying to convince herself that what she was saying was true, that the guilt was enough. “Not even a shadow-kissed can take that sort of thing away. Guilt likes to crawl its way back in.”

Rose grabbed her shot glass, filled it up, and drank for no reason at all except the pounding in her head that reminded her that Adrian had been her lifeboat, and she had drowned him.

[rosehasaway]

ravishinavodka:

“Ice hell,” he scoffed. “And Russia’s a tropical getaway, right?” Adrian’s brows were raised high, but he was quick to wipe any look of disappointment or hurt off of his features. Now was hardly the time. He cleared his throat. 

Adrian thought about his own life. His parents’ marriage had ended in divorce, and he could see why. It was hard to believe sweet Daniella and arrogant Nathan had ever agreed to spend their lives together in the first place, and yet he was living proof that they had. “It’s just a title,” he said. Perhaps surprisingly, Adrian had imagined his own wedding many times. These fantasies rarely played out in his favor, but it would be a lie to say he was completely disenchanted with the idea of lifelong commitment. 

“Or a lie, maybe. You can’t tell me it isn’t a nice lie though.” He stopped fidgeting, and from across the table caught her eye. “Everyone knows it’s doomed. You either stay together out of obligation or you grow a pair and admit that twenty years later you’ve grown into different people and can’t stomach each other anymore.” He sighed, his features softening. “Everyone knows it, but isn’t there something nice about thinking hey, we’re special. We won’t fall apart like everyone else. I believe in what we’ve got.” 

He moved to refill the shot glass, but it was her eyes he was looking into as he recalled his own feelings of love that had overcome him not so long ago. “It’s bullshit, obviously. But it’s kind of beautiful, being so consumed by happiness that you drive yourself insane enough to believe it.” 

When he spoke next, his voice was raspy. A rock sliding across sandpaper. “Nine.”

“Need I remind you that I’m not living in Russia? It’s hard enough having to rarely see the sun. When I do get to see it, I’d like it to be warm,” Rose moved her head back, the sun in her dream growing two sizes as if to prove some sort of point. Too long had they all sat in the darkness that the Moroi schedule entailed. This felt like paradise. Russia just felt like a distant memory. Confused and desperate moments that all culminated towards one point--Dimitri. That Rose seemed drastically different from this one. She had been obsessed, crazed, willing to do whatever it took. This Rose was, not cautious, but skeptical. Not obsessed, but hidden.

She was about to respond when it felt like her body turned to stone. Adrian’s eyes held her, and instead of daring her to look away, he was daring her to look closer. Rose couldn’t hide her surprise at his willingness for marriage. Maybe he and Dimitri had more in common than they thought. “You can be all of those things without some stupid wedding, and obnoxious vows. Anyone can go mad with love. A ring isn’t going to prove anything. A ring is just--it’s just a claim.”

Breaking free from his gaze, Rose turned the card over, more than just a little thankful at the result. A ten. At least this wouldn’t be her turn to share something, to divulge some sort of weakness. A simple and innocent drinking game would never be innocent with such two stubborn and partially insane people. Rose’s explanation for being so crazy didn’t even have an excuse. She liked when the adrenaline made her heart beat fast, and right now it was going to fly right out of her chest with anticipation.

[rosehasaway]

ravishinavodka:

Adrian snorted a laugh, his head shaking slightly. “What a truth,” he said. He couldn’t say that he had the worst parents out there, especially not with the love he had for his mother. But never seeing eye-to-eye with his father had caused more strain on Adrian than he cared to admit, and he oftentimes wondered if it weren’t just the Spirit that had shaped Adrian’s reckless abandon, but also the unattainable affections of his father. After all, if someone was always going to look at you as a failure no matter your successes, why bother succeeding at all? 

His brows wiggled playfully as the card was revealed, delight already creeping into his eyes. But despite the flippant, playful nature of his reaction, he was starving for her secrets. If his life were a painting, she was the brightest strokes around the edges that illuminated the darkness within, and every moment with her and new peek into her soul was another flick of the paintbrush covering up the dark. 

“Still could be,” he shrugged. “If you really wanted. I bet there’s a Royal around here somewhere that would put a ring on it. I hear the Moroi prince of Greenland is in the market.” He was sticking his toes in the water, testing their ebb and flow. How much disgust did the idea of anyone but Dimitri by her side for life fill her with? How much did she consider the thought of impermanence in their relationship?

Adrian flipped the card and smiled. “Oh, that’s tough luck, Little Dhampir.” He filled her shot glass back up and pushed it towards her. 

“Moroi prince of Greenland?” Rose scoffed. “Greenland has to be the worst place imaginable to live. Probably why he hasn’t married anyone. Everyone with decent enough sense is staying far away from that ice hell. Besides, I’m not sure my boyfriend would enjoy watching me marry someone else, especially since I’ve sworn off marriage all together.”

She shrugged her shoulders, accepting the defeat, and downing the shot. “You know, that already sort of counts as a secret. I don’t like marriage. At least, I don’t agree with the premise of it all. It’s all too final, and permanent, but in the worst ways. I don’t think I even know a happy married couple. Everyone I know either never got married, or was married and found it so miserable that they stopped, or they’ve stuck it out and remained miserable. Not the greatest of endearments, you know? So if they’ve all failed, it’d be stupid to just follow along and blindly ignore all of the evidence. The only people that might actually have a chance to be happy is Lissa and Christian, but that’s because it’s Lissa and Christian.”

Rose pushed forward, trying not to linger too long on the one secret. Maybe it was a betrayal to admit that Dimitri wanted to get married and she didn’t. At least she hadn’t mentioned her aversion towards kids. Dimitri, sweet, kind, protective Dimitri, who desperately wanted to adopt a child, and Rose, not wanting to deal with trying to raise it while worrying about everything else. Maybe she was selfish. Or maybe he was. She could never get it all straight.

“Fine then, you guess.”

[rosehasaway]

ravishinavodka:

He couldn’t say he was surprised to hear her call out a number, after all the pair of them were and always had been the sort to greet excitement and danger readily. With the look in her eyes, he thought it likely that he was in more danger than her, but if that didn’t mean only more excitement for the both of them, he didn’t know what would. 

Adrian turned the card over. Five. He smiled, slow and wide. “Ah,and thank you kindly,” he said, taking the shot glass and pouring the contents down his throat without effort or pause. It didn’t claw at his throat in the same authentic way as a real drink might, but the instant trickling of warmth that spread through first his belly and then his head was real enough, and he would thank its faux courage to spit out his secrets. 

Licking his lips and the liquid that still kissed them, he dug deeply for the scab of a secret small enough to open this early in the game. “St. Alder wasn’t the only school I attended. When I was fifteen I started to get the first effects of Spirit—” He swallowed, like those moments were hard to remember, or maybe almost frightening. Not because they were inherently terrifying, more because of how much worse things had gotten since. “They didn’t understand -I didn’t understand- so my father had me pulled out before I could embarrass him further.” Adrian shrugged like it didn’t matter, but the truth was etched into the canvas of his face. “People like to gossip when someone starts talking to people who aren’t there.” It had been a hard year, not only because of his struggle to understand Spirit, but because of the anger and disappointment his father treated him with because of its effects. 

“Anyway, my dad paid them off to let me back in a semester later, but I was never a very good student after that. I barely passed my last year.” Adrian’s eyes dropped to the empty shot glass in front of him, explanation enough for what addictions had crept up on him in that time. 

He cleared his throat. “Seven.”

Just like that, Rose didn’t want to play this game anymore. She didn’t want to hear about Adrian’s time at school. The hardships he faced. Spirit users had it unbearably horrible compared to ever other user. Rose knew, agonizingly well, what Spirit did to people. The draws, the needs. Darkness. She could picture it, picture him. Fifteen and utterly lost because he was decent at every element, but not drawn to any of them in particular. Fifteen and already his mind was slipping. Fifteen and fucked up. Lissa handled it better than most people would, but there were always moments, her only blessing then had been Rose. Rose who had sucked the crazy right from her friend, keeping her off the edge and sending herself into an oblivion. Long had she adapted to those feelings. They had been familiar to her--and hearing the experience of someone else, it made her stomach churn. At least now people knew. 

“Parents suck.” The relationship between Rose and her mother was legendary, and while the two women were on easier terms these days, they weren’t perfect, nowhere near perfect. Too stubborn, and too similar, their meetings were best left for once in a blue moon.

Rose went to lift the card, her heart hammering in her chest. Please don’t be seven, please don’t be seven. She flipped the card over, angry at the impossibility of it. A seven.

“I used to want to be a princess. I think my mom tried to explain it all to me, how Lissa could be one, but I couldn’t. How I was just meant to guard Lissa. But that seemed so unfair, you know? Why did Lissa get to be a princess and have all the pretty gowns? It was stupid. I used to run around with a paper crown on my head, and I’d practice curtsying. I guess it’s a good thing I wasn’t royalty, I never quite got that curtsy down.” A pause. “Lissa doesn’t even know that. I think if she did she’d feel guilty. At least, guiltier. She always thought that guarding her was all I ever wanted.”

Unconsciously Rose’s fingers went into her hair, hating having to admit something, but especially something that Lissa was unaware of. Until she realized that every secret she had now was hers and hers alone. When had she stopped telling Lissa everything? Was it when she became Queen, burdened with the heaviness of her own position? Or maybe it was when doubts crept up into her mind, poisoning her to the world around her.

“Two.”

[rosehasaway]

ravishinavodka:

“You’re not very good at commitment are you, Little Dhampir?” he asked as the kitchen scene faded fast and light flooded his vision. He had to admit, he liked this setting much better. It wasn’t often he got to bask in the sun without consequence, and any chance to feel even an artificial heat on his cool skin was one he was happy to take. 

Adrian reached towards the stack and flipped the top card over, revealing the three of spades. “Guardians it is,” he said, nodding towards Rose and sliding the overturned card back into the deck at random. 

There was an itch that made its way through his veins, almost sending a shiver down through his spin. Some called this itch anticipation, but there was another word for it that fit better: irritation. Not the same irritation born of a grating noise or a long line, but rather that of a harmless, painless rash. One area freckled in invisible hives that, once noticed, he could not stop touching so that they spread and spread. His irritation was the need to know her secrets, and even the need to tell her his. It would go away in time if he did as he should and stopped touching the irritated area. But there was something so satisfying in watching it spread. He didn’t care if he was consumed. 

Commitment coming out of Adrian’s mouth seemed like either a sick joke, or a slap in the face. She didn’t give the comment a retort, firmly staring up at the now visible bright blue sky. Being on Moroi hours wasn’t exactly a perk of the job, but this, the heavy sun shining down on her, if only for the dream, it was enough. 

She was up. Would she play it safe and not guess an exact number? Or would she continue on what she told herself she’d do--play this game, play it his way, and win. There seemed to be little choice in the matter. Looking weak, looking afraid, none of those were proper options. Rose Hathaway didn’t whimper at the idea of secrets.

“Five,” Rose stated confidently, her gaze now fixed on the deck of cards, as if willing them to do her bidding. To come out with a five and leave her on the winning end of this zero sum game. She couldn’t lose. Not in secrets shared, or numbers guessed. Guardians didn’t always have to be the low numbers. They had proven their worth time and time again, and it was damn time a Guardian taught a Moroi how to properly win at a drinking game.

“Go on then, flip it.”