"So after everything that's happened, I'm going to lose you too."
Natalya Nikolaevna Romanova is a Russian grand duchess in a time of revolution. Benjamin Ellsworth is a British press attaché tasked with smuggling her across Europe. They hate each other. For a while, at least.
Loosely based on the true and tragic events of the fall of the Romanov dynasty, We Were Something is a novel about family, royalty, war, friendship, a secret mission, a forbidden love, and a world on the brink between the uncompromising hierarchies of the past and the golden opportunities of the future.
It’s been six years since Obi’s been in this house, three times as long as he ever lived here, but still his feet guide him like the difference between seventeen and twenty-four is a day. He turns left, turns right, and then he’s standing in the bathroom at the end of the hall just like he did every day before school, squinting blearily at his reflection and grimacing. It’s like he never left.
When he’s more awake a few minutes later, washing his hands and splashing water on his face, he wonders if he ever truly did.
He shuffles down the hallway after, scratching at the shiny lump of scar tissue that cuts across his chest. It’s been itching like crazy since last night. His shoulder twinges too, nagging for relief. He should ask Doc about it -- she’s got those tiny fingers, perfect for digging into the meat of his shoulder and unraveling those painful knots, but --
But he knows what she’ll say, what she speculates might be going on in his headspace. She’s not -- she wouldn’t be wrong, not even a little, but he doesn’t need the psych eval right now. He just just needs to -- to get through the week. And try not to jab her with his dick in the night while he’s at it.
He scrubs his hand over his face, stubble rasping over his palm. Just two goals. Setting the bar low.
Obi’s got a feeling it’s still not low enough.
At the top of the stairs, he starts tugging on his shirt, trying to get the cotton to cover the bulk of his scar without having to button up a suspicious amount -- the last thing he needs is Gayle asking questions, or, god, trying to see it -- when he hears murmuring from the kitchen. For a moment he’s struck by the visceral feeling of being in trouble; he’s on his feet now, but it feels like he’s crouched against the banister, listening to serious voices saying things like adjustment periods and family cohesion. The words disruptive influence surface from his past like some monster from the deep. He churns them over endlessly, paralyzed by the memory. His chest is tight, he can hardly breathe; it’s like he’s already got one foot out the door everywhere he goes --
And then he hear her, the bell-like ring of her laugh, and he can breathe again, can think again. All his ghosts are banished.
For now at least. A temporary fix for a long term problem. A temporary fix that has a long term boyfriend is more like it.
Another bell jingles through the house, obnoxious and twee, and Obi finds himself staring down a flight of stairs into a pair of beady eyes set into a cloud of black-and-tan fluff. By habit, he bows his head. “Your Lordship!”
As if flattery has ever placated the Baron.
As much a tattle-tale as ever, the little ball breaks out into hysterical barking, dancing around in agitated circles to alert his masters to the clear intruder on the second floor.
“I see you’re still too stupid to know how stairs work,” Obi deadpans, glaring down as the Baron tries to gnaw on the banister, personally offended by its presence. “I guess you can’t teach a new dog new tricks either.”
He opens his mouth to reply, but he’s not given the opportunity. Instead, he hears a barstool screech, and Doc blurts out, “I’ll go get him!”
She wheels around the corner, bounding up the stairs like a red-haired missile, shoving him back into the bathroom and slamming the door.
“Woah, Doc,” he says, trying to ignore the way her hand is splay over his chest, the way her hips trap him up against the rim of the sink. Yeah, this is just what he needs; he finally fells his morning wood and then this happens. Great. Great. “Where’s the fire?”
“I have to talk to you.” She isn’t looking at him, just staring at the base of his throat like somehow that has answers.
He lets out a long breath. He can handle this, it’s -- it’s fine. “Okay.”
She hesitates, her shoulders heaving with the harsh rhythm of her breath. He’s not sure what’s gotten into her, why she looks like she’s run a mile at ten in the morning, but it can’t be anything good. The longer it takes her to drum up her courage to speak, the more worried he gets; not about the content of what she has to say, but about -- about the journey she’s had there. Doc’s clever; she thinks a mile a minute, but she’s also prone to get caught up in her own bad thoughts, letting them go around and around in a loop until she’s worked up, upset about a grain of sand she’s turned into a mountain in her own mind.
She’s taking too long. He leans back, his hands curling around the rim of the sink, and drawls, “You know, if you take much longer, they’re going to think we’re doing something else in here besides just talking.”
That does the trick. Doc flushes an alarming shade of red, and he thinks she’ll step away, put some space between them, but --
“We can’t tell them,” she blurts out, her words jostling out of her like they’re in a rush. Like if she doesn’t say them quick they’ll miss their train. “About us, I mean. The not dating thing. We can’t tell them we’re not dating.”
“Are you --” he can’t even believe he’s saying the words -- “asking me to lie?”
“No! I mean, yes, but...” She wrings her hands, mouth similarly twisted. “They’d just -- I don’t want them to be disappointed. In you.”
“Doc, please,” he laughs, rolling his eyes. “I think my -- Bob and Gayle are already well aware I’m a fuck-up. This is not going to come as a surprise.”
“Obi.” There she is, the girl he knows, eyes steely and jaw set. He should have know this would bring her out. “Don’t talk about yourself like that.”
He knows better than to push it, to tell her it’s true.
“All right,” he says instead, leaning subtly forward, crowding her without moving a step. “We don’t tell them. But are you prepared for that?”
She blinks. “Prepared for what?”
Ah, good. This will work like a charm.
“You’re going to have to pretend we’re together.” His voice drops deep into his chest, almost a purr. The pink flush of her skin spreads down to where her -- where his sweatshirt isn’t zipped to cover. He smirks, bending near her ear. “That means no asking for a separate bed tonight.”
Her nose twitches, rabbit-like in her indignation. “Fine.”
“You’ll have to say sweet things about me.”
“I already do that,” she reminds him. “All the time.”
His heart flutters inconveniently at that, the little traitor. Far less suave than he’d like, he blurts out, “You might have to kiss me.”
Her face does something odd, a little shiver that masks her reaction. Then she is learning forward, hands braced beside his on the sink, chin tilted up in challenge. This close, he’s struck by how dark her eyes are, like looking up through a forest on a rainy night. “If that’s what it would take.”
He’s never heard that tone from her, low and hoarse and -- and sultry. His heart picks up its pace, pumping blood to even more inconvenient places. “Doc --”
The knock on the door sends them spiraling away from one another, both of them eager to put some plausible distance between them.
“If you two are about finished,” Bob offers dryly through the door, “Gayle says the pancakes are done. She’s grumbling something fierce about Obi looking skinny.”
“We’ll, uh --” Doc seems to run out of words.
“Be right down,” he finishes, arching a bow. He sweeps a hand toward the door. “After you.”
Bob’s the first to go down the stairs, which is great since it gives Shirayuki plenty of time to think about how she would like the earth to swallow her whole. She’s stepped out of the bathroom, Obi not far behind, and all Bob has to do is lift one single eyebrow -- so like another expression she knows -- and her whole body breaks out in a blush.
He thought they were doing -- doing things in there. To each other.
What’s worse is that she wanted to. She’d had her hand splayed over his chest, half of it on the skin bared by the vee of his collar, feeling how his heart thrummed steadily against her palm, and oh, how she wanted --
“Hey,” Obi murmurs, too low for Bob to hear ahead of them. Despite herself, a tremor shudders down her spine, sending sparks over the surface of her skin. “You should check your phone.”
It’s like having ice water dumped over her. Her steps stutter at the landing, mind running though every worst-case scenario. Something’s happened to the turtles. Something’s happened to Yuzuri. Something’s happened to Ryuu --
“Is something wrong?” she ekes out before she can spiral too far, before she works herself into a panic.
He blinks slowly, shaking his head in an exaggerated motion that makes her think he’s not as awake as he pretends. “Nah. Chief’s just been looking for you is all.”
“Oh.” A thousand wings take flight in her stomach; she would have thought it was excitement once, that she was happy he was thinking of her, but -- but --
It’s not that anymore. It’s the low drone of bees, all her anxiety and guilt churning into an angry swarm that batters against the soft tissues of her gut. They haven’t talked for -- for a long time. Graduation at least, when he’d called her to congratulate her on walking. He’d been upset a few weeks before, hurt that they hadn’t chosen to go to Clarines, but it was the sort of impotent anger of someone raging against a situation. He hadn’t tried to change her mind, just said that’s disappointing in a way she knew meant you’ve disappointed me.
It’d been short then, just pleasantries, and then she’d gone to dinner with Obi and --
And that had been it for that. For her.
Shirayuki slips back to their room -- Obi’s room, she reminds herself; she’s the one who’s a guest here, who’s superfluous. She slips out her phone, flicking it awake. There’s no missed calls, no unread texts.
It’s not even a surprise. Not anymore.
She expects to her belly give an unpleasant swoop, to feel let down but -- but she doesn’t. She’s relieved. Obi’s always telling her things; Chief’s looking for you, he says now, but for the past three years it’s been he’s thinking of you, today Chief was talking about you, Chief says he’d like to hear your voice. Obi’s said more about Zen’s feelings for her than he ever had himself.
Shirayuki shakes her head. She’s not being fair.
This is just – this is nerves. She hasn’t talked to him in months, not for long, and it was bad enough when she just had the vague beginning of these feelings, but now – now –
There’s other things. Stuff she can’t just…forget.
Even if he does.
She punches the call button before she can talk herself out of it. It rings three times, and for a minute she thinks it might go to voicemail, she might just be able to avoid –
“Shirayuki?” Zen says, his tone a little tense. “Is something wrong?”
“Ah.” Yes. “No, I just…Obi said you were looking for me.”
“Oh. Oh.” She hears the scrape of a chair, and she realizes he’s leaving a room, that he’s going to go have a private talk with her. “Yeah, Mitsuhide had said you were traveling, and I wanted to make sure you got in okay.”
“Oh, yeah.” She taps her nails on the bedpost nervously. “Yeah, we got in late, but – we’re fine.”
His words have an odd edge when he asks, “You slept well?”
(His breath is hot on her neck, sending shivers straight down to her toes; she tries to move, she does, but all she does is wriggle closer to his hips and --
Oh. Oh.
They mostly fall asleep on the couch now, not some tiny single in his room. It’s been a while since she’s had to feel...things, and she’d...forgotten about that particular fact. Oh my.)
“Yes,” she squeaks. “Uh, as much as could be expected. It’s always weird to sleep in a new place.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, voice still strange. “Isn’t that saying it’s weird to sleep alone in a new place?”
“Is it?” Her palms are slick, and her stomach churns. It’s – it’s not any of his business, not really, not anymore. She’d worried that when they talked she’d feel guilty, feel like she’d betrayed some understanding they had, ruined something she liked but –
But she doesn’t feel anything. She just…doesn’t want to have an argument. Have their first argument, really. Not over this.
“Are you leaving for Switzerland soon?” she asks. “You’re going to celebrate with your mom and Izana, right?”
“And Haki, yes.” He sounds relieved at the turn in conversation. “I’m sure it’ll all be wedding talk. Mother wants them to have it at the Vineyard, Izana wants France, who knows what Haki wants…”
“Sounds…” She smiles. “Normal.”
“Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?” He hesitates. “I think it might actually be…nice.”
And that’s as much as a death knell as anything. She was never welcome to their chalet, and Zen…
Zen belongs there.
“I, um, have to get going,” she says, trying to cover her relief. “Obi’s parents made breakfast.”
“Man, it’s so weird to hear that,” Zen sighs. “Obi having parents. You know, after everything.”
“Yeah,” she agrees. “But it’s nice.”
He’s silent for a long moment. “It is.” He clears his throat. “I guess I’ll, um, see you then?”
“Yeah.” She nods, even though he can’t see it. “Sometime.”
