#sh: theo x anna

[lindsayrps]

trying to be where you are

it’s been a few months, now, since theo hawke has become the de facto entertainment for the palace, a designation that he, honestly, still struggles with more than he would ever prefer to admit. it’s fine, he thinks, if he gets to spend most of his time in the place he had called home since arriving, moving freely about the city and using his time as he saw fit to use it, only spending a few hours within the walls of the palace when the need arose. there are days, however, where the empress requests his presence there for hours on end and for no particular reason, in his mind, except to cater to her whims for being entertained whenever the mood struck and those days, they’re a little more difficult.

a lot more difficult, really.

(she says something about inspiration for his future works, too, and while he doesn’t necessarily agree with that, lately, he doesn’t say as such because that’s a good way to get thrown out permanently.)

as winter births spring, it becomes easier, he supposes. it’s no longer necessary to be trapped within the walls of the palace, gaze fixed on the world outside blanketed in snow from in front of the beyond massive windows that line the walls wherever he looked and around whatever corner he turned. nature comes alive; flowers bloom and leave son the trees flutter in the breeze, chirping birds dotting the branches. with the sun high in the sky and a warmth that the last several months had been devoid of, this is the weather he enjoys the most.

one days like this, theo tucks a pencil in his pocket along with a book of poetry and some blank paper and ventures through the garden of the palace until he reaches a pond that feels more like a lake in all its grandeur. it’s far enough away that the palace doesn’t loom over it, blue waters sparkling and rippling under the spring sun. shedding his jacket, he lays it out as flat as possible on the grass and, fishing the pencil and book out of his pockets, sits down on it, a barrier between him and the pond water specked grass.

at first, he tries to write some but the words don’t quite come as easily as he’d expected them to. every time, he writes a few words and then scribbles them out, starting again and repeating the cycle until he decides to give up and read instead. theo’s chosen john donne, this time, and the more he reads and gets lost in the words of one of his countrymen, the more he loses track of time passing, only brought back to reality when a shadow casts itself across him as he half lies on his side in the grass. on first instinct, an admittedly large part of him thinks he’s in trouble, that someone from the palace had been searching for him because the empress had wanted to speak to him and they couldn’t find him until just now.

he prepares for the worst, then, only breathing a sigh of relief when he glances up and finds he’s been found out by anna markova, instead. they haven’t gotten to know each other very well, given that they can’t exactly spend a whole lot of time with each other except only for a few moments here and there, if at all. he likes her, though. she doesn’t seem to be like the other ladies here. sure, everyone pretends they’re interested when they’re at his readings but anna takes what feels like a genuine interest in his works, says they’re good in the brief moment of time she’s allowed to approach him after his readings before being ushered off with everyone else. she doesn’t treat him like he’s a toy waiting to be played with or a puppet to be controlled at will.

he appreciates that.

"you know, if you’re trying to hide from everyone in the palace, you’re not doing a very good job of it out here in the open." she says, her tone equal parts chiding and teasing, further proven by the slight smile that dances across her face as she folds her hands in front of her. "you may look like an ant but we can still see you from the windows."

"well," theo starts, shifting to sit up, legs stretching out in front of him. he sets his book down in the grass beside him with a shrug of his shoulders. "maybe i’m not hiding, just hoping the right person finds me."

"and am i the person you were hoping for?" she asks, presumably as innocently as possible. maybe she doesn’t really know how bold it is to ask such a question, maybe she is genuinely curious if she is the one person he wouldn’t have minded finding him out here so far from the steps of the palace.

theo twists around to face her, examining her face for a minute. "i would hate to be the cause of your inflated ego, miss markova." he says, finally, "so, i’m afraid i can’t answer that in good faith."

"please, call me anna." a pause, she moves from behind to beside him, asks, "may i join you?"

"anna." theo nods, "of course." he shifts over on the jacket enough to allow her room to sit beside him. it feels…wrong, in a way, but she does and he watches her out of the corner of his eye as she adjusts her skirts around her, smoothing them down with her hand.

"have you written anything new lately?" she asks, glancing over across the pond before turning to fix her gaze on him. it makes him feel…nervous, for some reason.

"uh, i me—no. it’s been difficult lately." he shakes his head, avoiding her gaze. there’s no use in trying to sugarcoat the writer’s block he’s experiencing nor is there any use in mentioning that he may or may not have written a few lines about her in the hopes it could spark something more intentional within his writing, not when nothing substantial had come from it. it’s just a few scribbled lines on the backs of paper, paper he is suddenly hoping isn’t hiding away in the pockets of his trousers. picking up the book beside him, then, he holds it up for her. "just reading. john donne?"

anna shakes her head, looks what theo thinks is sheepish at her lack of knowledge about donne. he doesn’t fault her for it. he’s not sure how far reaching english poetry gets outside of england, after all.

"death be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so." theo recites, by heart, the opening lines of one of his favourites.

"you’ve memorized it?" she asks, surprise colouring her tone. 

"not all of it," he shrugs. "just a few lines." read enough poetry and some of it just sticks with you, at least that’s what he’d always told himself whenever he’d found himself remembering certain lines rather than whole, entire poems. 

"it sounds interesting." she says and from anyone else, he wouldn’t believe them but he does with her.

"here," he opens the book, flicking through pages until he lands on a different poem, holding it out for her to take from him. he’s not so quick to pull his hand back when her fingers brush against his, but when he does, he uses it to drag a finger along the opening lines. "batter my heart, three person’d god," his finger drifts further down the page, towards the end, "take me to you, imprison me, for i, except you enthrall me, never shall be free, nor ever chaste, except you ravish me."

"what’s it about?" she asks, lowering the book down to her lap.

"i’m not sure." theo’s brow knits together, watching as she delicately flips through the pages of the book, "nobody can seem to agree on one particular meaning. i’m of the opinion that it can have many, no one interpretation is more correct than any other."

"what about this one?" she lifts the book and shows him the page.

"love, more or less." he says, then recites a few lines, "licence my roving hands, and let them go, before, behind, between, above, below."

"sounds…" she trails off, as if she’s unsure of how best to describe the poems he’s read to her.

"erotic?"

anna tilts her head in his direction, brow rising at his choice of words. "provocative, i’d say."

"all the best poets are." theo doesn't entirely know how true that is—many poets are the best at their craft without being as…frank about certain subjects the way donne is, that doesn’t make them any less than him or anyone else.

"does that make you a bad poet?" anna closes the book, hands it back to him. "i don’t recall any of your poems being like this."

"you’re right, none of them are like this." he agrees with a nod and a laugh. this time it’s his turn to fix her with his gaze, "maybe i just haven’t found the right inspiration yet."

[lindsayrps]

so drink, and rage and forget

Theo’s first mistake is staying in Russia.

His second, tamping down his jealousy of Peter and Anna like sand in a bottle and pretending it didn’t exist.

Here, now, though, he feels like a fool.

The halls of the Palace feel cavernous when they’re empty, he’s spent enough time with the palace staff to know what the place is like when there’s hardly anyone around, if anyone at all. He’d almost prefer emptiness to the suffocating feeling he gets when it’s him standing opposite Peter and Anna. He’s tired of hiding and, if he’s to believe what Peter says, there’s no point in pretending anymore—everyone knows. Everyone knows and they would have to be blind to not see it and that’s a problem as far as the Prince is concerned.

He doesn’t love Anna the way Theo does, if at all, but his face twists into a wicked smile as she, once and for all, states that he means nothing to her and never will. She can’t look at him when she says it and he wants to doubt that she means it but what good would that do? They’re not supposed to fit together, he knows that, and no amount of wishful thinking was going to change that. He wasn’t going to become wealthy overnight and the Markovas were not going to let their daughter slum it with someone like him when she’d had all of this at her disposal already.

He wasn’t going to fight it.

He watches as Peter steers Anna away, comforting her and acting as if Theo had committed some grave offence and had been the one to upset her in the first place. He stays, rooted, where he stood until they disappear around the corner and then he can’t get out of there fast enough, winding his way back through the halls until he’s stopped by one of the kitchen staff.

"Some of us are going to the tavern in town, care to join us?"

No words come out of Theo’s mouth but he must’ve nodded, he thinks, because he finds himself in the local tavern with several of the staff he might almost consider family. The crowd is lively, singing and dancing and carrying on. On any other day, Theo might’ve happily joined them but, as it is, he sits at a table far from the crowd of people, happy to waste the night away drinking to dull the ache in his chest.

It doesn’t surprise him, though, that his company for the evening has other plans.

"You look down, my dear boy." An older, more rotund gentleman drops down into a chair next to Theo at the table. He’s been like a father figure to Theo over the many months that he’s been here. Theo is sure he’s just another young person for him to watch over so he doesn’t cause chaos.

If only he knew.

"No, no." Theo shakes his head, "It’s been a long day."

"Bad?"

"Not good, no." A pause, "It would be nice to forget any of it happened."

"Ah, you poets." The older man laughs, a full belly laugh that almost makes Theo smile, "You are so dramatic."

Theo laughs, maybe for the first time that day. "Yes, so I’ve been told."

"Well, drink!" He gestures to the glass in front of Theo and then broadly towards the barkeeper slinging drinks out for other patrons, "Drink and forget. Tomorrow is a new day, yes?"

Theo nods. He has a point. "Tomorrow is a new day."

[lindsayrps]

swimming through sick lullabies

It’s been made abundantly clear to Theo that he and Anna Markova are never going to be anything publicly. In candlelit rooms when it’s just the two of them, sure, but within the walls of the palace, he’s nothing more than a peasant who’s good with words and kept around to play court jester to the opulent. He knew what the deal was and he fell in love with her anyways.

Being invited back to the court, time and time again, is like taking blows to an already fragile ego and he feels more and more like a circus animal being put on display the more time he spends here. He hadn’t come to Russia to be discovered, rather, he’d come as a sort of self exploration; he’d felt he’d done all he could in England, had grown beyond the confines of what it had given him and he’d wanted to explore what else he’d been capable of feeling and expressing through his poetry. He’d hated that they’d discovered him now. Hated that they constantly wanted him here to entertain them.

Seeing Anna being paraded around the ballroom with Neledinsky at her side yet again does nothing to quell those feelings, instead fuelling the jealousy that bubbles underneath the surface. Maybe they don’t love each other, Anna’s mentioned as much without hesitation in their more private moments, but nobody else knows that. He wants for nothing but to shout from the rooftops that he loves her and he doesn’t care who hears it but he can’t; at best, they’d pillory and humiliate him publicly for causing a scene and embarrassing the Empress and at worst...

Well, he didn’t want to think about that.

It’s easier, then, to take his leave. He’s supposed to read some of his work for them, later, but he doesn’t have the stomach for it anymore. He turns on his heel just as he catches Anna glancing over in his direction from across the room and doesn’t dare look back. He resolves to make plans to return home to England in the coming weeks or months, however long it takes. Hesitating near the grand entrance of the palace, Theo whirls around at the sound of heels clicking against the floor.

"Leaving so soon?" Anna asks, folding her hands in front of her as she slows to a stop a few steps away from him. Nobility filters past them, an excuse for the formality of their interaction with each other here and now.

Theo nods, eyes darting to a pair of people who pass them then. "Yes, I-I think it’s for the best." There’s a flicker of recognition on her face, he thinks, when he turns his gaze back to her. "Perhaps Krylov can read some of his works for you, instead."

"Are you ill?" She asks. He wonders if she asks because she knows he’s lying and wants to catch him in it or if she’s doing it to keep up the facade.

"N-No, I’m fine." Theo nods, stumbling over his words. He’s supposed to be good with them but around her he turns into a bumbling idiot or so it feels like. To the unsuspecting, perhaps, it looks like he's overwhelmed with talking to someone so highly regarded within the court. "I would just like to go home."

With no one around, the ruse drops. "Theo..." Anna goes to reach out to him, the whopper of a diamond sparkling in the lighting overhead and, instinctively, he takes a step back.

Her hand drops back into place.

"I’m sure Peter is wondering where you are." He says, finally, turning his back to her and towards the door. "Please tell the Empress I’m sorry to leave so suddenly. I hope she forgives me."