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Dec. 31st, 2017 10:36 pmIt isn't at all what Gleb would have expected from a New Year's celebration, even down to the date, but then, the past week and a half has made the fact of that itself easily predictable. Nearly everything about Darrow seems to be as far from the Russia he left behind as it's possible to get, and this is no exception. At least it's not quite as unpleasant or as unusual as it could be, as other things have been. Practically the entire city has turned out for this, it seems, bundled up more so than dressed up, waiting in line for food from street vendors. He's heard talk of other New Year's Eves spent up the mountain at the ski lodge, and between the two options, this one is infinitely preferable.
For all the people here, though, there's really only one whose presence he cares about. Despite seeing her, at her insistence, on the Christmas they celebrate here, he barely has the first idea what to do around Anya, no more than he did when he first caught sight of her here outside her building, having thought that he would never see her again. What he does know is that she's as beautiful as he's ever seen her, so much that it nearly hurts to look at her. She's not dressed for the ballet or a press conference this time, and mercifully so, but she's still a world away from the street sweeper he first noticed, what feels like so much longer ago now than it must actually have been. He never could have guessed then where they would wind up, either in this place or before it.
Of course, it makes sense that she would seem to fit in here, far better than he does or could imagine to himself. Wearing the suit that he'd worn in Paris, the nicest thing he owns and likely to stay that way, for how far from comfortable he is in it, he straightens his jacket before he makes his way over to her, mostly for something to do with his hands. "Anya," he says. "You look — well."
For all the people here, though, there's really only one whose presence he cares about. Despite seeing her, at her insistence, on the Christmas they celebrate here, he barely has the first idea what to do around Anya, no more than he did when he first caught sight of her here outside her building, having thought that he would never see her again. What he does know is that she's as beautiful as he's ever seen her, so much that it nearly hurts to look at her. She's not dressed for the ballet or a press conference this time, and mercifully so, but she's still a world away from the street sweeper he first noticed, what feels like so much longer ago now than it must actually have been. He never could have guessed then where they would wind up, either in this place or before it.
Of course, it makes sense that she would seem to fit in here, far better than he does or could imagine to himself. Wearing the suit that he'd worn in Paris, the nicest thing he owns and likely to stay that way, for how far from comfortable he is in it, he straightens his jacket before he makes his way over to her, mostly for something to do with his hands. "Anya," he says. "You look — well."
