Work Text:
Alina had already resolved not to accept the invitation, it was a long drive to the middle of nowhere, and the weather wasn’t very good. Though, she also wasn’t too keen on spending Christmas alone.
“I don’t know,” she said to Genya on the phone, pacing her tiny apartment. The space wasn’t very festive, to be sure. She’d put up a small tree but hadn’t even bothered to decorate it beyond a carelessly arranged string of lights.
“Nikolai said you were coming! You can’t let us down now.” Of course he had.
“I told him maybe. Maybe I would come.”
“We haven’t seen you in ages! We all miss you.”
She chewed her lip. “Wouldn’t it be awkward though?” They’d slowly lost touch after she’d dropped out of college. Or well, she’d stopped returning calls and moving out of state meant in person visits weren’t exactly convenient or affordable. Of her old friend group, she only really talked to Genya anymore.
“Of course not, it’ll be a reunion.” At her silence Genya added, “Zoya will be there too. Please come, I’ll need the buffer.”
Oh God, Zoya. “I don’t know. Maybe,” she said with what she thought was great reluctance. But Genya seemed to all but take it as an acceptance.
And perhaps it was, because two days before Christmas, she found herself packing a light bag, and letting the GPS lead her through the drive over. Somehow the roads weren’t completely iced over, and for that she was tremendously grateful. But the temperature dropped as she drove. By the time she pulled up to the private side road, there was a solid layer of snow over everything. And despite the fact that the clock on her dashboard said it was only barely past midday, the sky was a murky gray that made it difficult to have a sense of time.
The “getaway” as Nikolai had called it, was a week long affair, hosted at his family’s lake house. She’d only been there the once before, back when she had still been dating Mal. She’d forgotten to, or well, hadn’t wanted to ask if he’d been invited too but she kind of doubted it. Last she’d heard from him, he’d moved abroad. Pursuing what, she wasn’t exactly sure.
The building was remote, but scenic. And by some measure of fortune, and at complete odds with the rest of his family’s property, tastefully designed. The same couldn’t be said for the lawn decorations though. Life-sized reindeer light fixtures swiveled their heads back and forth, ribbons and artificial fir lined all the tudor style windows. The snow made it hard to tell, but it looked like hanging string lights dripped from every single tree lining the front face of the property. Alina shuddered to think of the electricity bill.
Counting the cars in the lot, she recognized Genya’s vintage bug that David had built for her, Tolya’s comically small hybrid, Tamar and Nadia’s suburban, Nikolai’s painfully expensive sports car du jour, and ah yes, there was Zoya’s gleaming blue convertible— with the top up at the moment, of course. This was going to be interesting.
The front door was already open before she had a chance to knock or fully prepare herself. And before she knew it Genya had thrown her arms around her. “It’s been so, so long,” she said. “I thought you’d died.”
“We talked last week.”
“And why else would someone wait a week to talk to me?”
Nikolai cut in with his characteristic good cheer. “Alina it’s lovely to see you but I think we’re going to freeze to death if you don’t close the door.”
“What’s Christmas without a little frostbite?” she answered, pulling the door shut behind her. “It builds character.”
“I find I like having all my fingers, thank you.”
“Did you put all that up yourself?” She asked, gesturing behind her towards the lawn.
Nikolai shook his head. “Oh, God no.”
“You paid someone to professionally decorate your family’s lake house?”
“Yes.”
“I think I hate you.”
“I’m devastated. How was the drive?” he asked, peering out through one of the sidelights.
“Not too bad. Though it was starting to get a little iffy towards the end.”
“That’s good. All the same, I’m glad you made it when you did, there’s supposed to be a big storm headed our way in the evening.”
Genya raised her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”
“You mean you don’t enjoy blizzards?”
“I can’t say I do.”
He shrugged. “It was on the morning news. I suppose it tanks any plans for skating, but I wouldn’t suggest that anyway, unless the prospect of being plunged into slushy lake water is particularly thrilling to you.”
Genya side eyed him. “You watch the news? On the television?”
“Sometimes.”
“Positively barbaric.”
“I wasn’t sure if we were doing gifts, but I brought wine,” Alina said, offering him the paper bags.
“Wine is the greatest gift of all. After your lovely company of course.”
“Sure.” She shrugged off her coat and made her way into the living room. The place was decorated very quaintly, plush carpets, heavy curtains and a truly ridiculous amount of wreaths everywhere. The tree itself was an enormous glittering thing. “What Hallmark set did you loot?”
Genya shook her head. “Do you see what we must suffer?”
Tamar snorted from where she was reclining on the sofa with a book, her head in Nadia’s lap. “You weren’t here for the incessant Christmas music. We had to mutiny against that.”
Nikolai shrugged under Alina’s horrified stare. “I was feeling festive.”
“I think the correct term is ‘sadistic’,” said Zoya, emerging from the kitchen, a steaming mug in her hand. Frustratingly enough, she looked as perfect as ever, with her raven’s hair and brilliant blue eyes. Standing by the tree, she looked like a painting, or a particularly, obnoxiously, pretty postcard. “Starkov,” she said by way of greeting.
“Nazyalensky,” was Alina’s curt reply.
“You grace us with your presence.”
“You burden us with yours.”
Zoya laughed, breaking the tension. Alina couldn’t tell how genuine it was, but she could never read Zoya.
Their rivalry had fluctuated from friendly to not so friendly often enough, between their competition for the same internship—until Alina had dropped out entirely, anyway— and Zoya’s brief fling with Mal. She hadn’t been dating Mal at the time, but it’d still stung. Things simply got complicated when your ex and your old crush hooked up. Though she told herself she wasn’t as affected by Zoya anymore. It was in the past.
Regardless, she wasn’t sure where they stood at the moment, hopefully they could just grit their teeth and smile through the weekend. It wasn’t as if they’d talked recently anyway, so hopefully that had cooled tensions enough between them.
There were more hugs and hellos after that. Then Nikolai pointed Alina to her room upstairs. Of course it was right across from Zoya’s.
It was silly but, knowing her old rival was there made Alina want to look nicer. She pulled her hair out of the ponytail, and took the time to change out of her wrinkled travel clothes and into a fresh dress from her bag.
By the time she made her way back downstairs, she found Tolya and David playing chess in the dining room, with everyone else watching them. Both of them were in horrible Christmas sweaters— apparently they’d lost at cards to Tamar.
“We got sick of losing so we switched to chess,” Tolya explained.
“Doesn’t look like you’re doing much better at that either,” Alina said, peering at Tolya’s king and three remaining pawns.
“I think I can still turn it around.”
“Okay,” she said dubiously, and settled in to watch. To Tolya’s credit, the game did at least last a surprisingly long time. And by then they were mostly just chatting around the table.
There was a lot of catching up to do, out of the entire group, Alina had only really kept talking to Genya. And it was interesting to hear what everyone else had been up to, but eventually the conversation turned back to her.
“So what do you do now?” Nadia asked her.
“I paint.”
Zoya raised an eyebrow. “But how do you pay the bills?”
“Well that does pay some of them,” she insisted. “But I work at a youth shelter too. It’s nice. I was thinking about getting a degree for social work but you know, money.”
“What happened to the boyfriend? He didn’t feel like showing up?”
“Oh, that didn’t work out.”
“What?” Zoya looked genuinely astonished. “I thought it was forever and a day, nauseating sweetness and declarations of undying love?”
“The on again off again thing wasn’t really healthy I guess. We just decided on a clean break.” Alina shrugged, uncomfortable with this line of conversation. “Why am I being cross examined again?”
“Because you were practically off gridding,” Genya replied sweetly.
“I have Facebook!”
Tamar put very little effort in disguising her laugh as a cough.
Genya shook her head. “I don’t know what I was expecting.”
“What?”
“Who uses Facebook?”
“Plenty of people,” she said incredulously.
“Name one person under fifty.”
“Tolya?”
“That does not help your case.”
Tamar grinned. “Tolya still has a hotmail account.”
Nikolai turned to him with fascination. “Do you use LiveJournal too?”
“Why am I being dragged into this?” he grumbled, seeming more interested in getting his king out of check.
Afterwards, she, Genya, and surprisingly Zoya, went out by the lake for a bit to see the snow, but by then it was already ankle deep. Alina couldn’t help but keep peeking over at Zoya, wondering why she’d decided to come with them. The cold wind whipped her black hair around her and brought the color out in her cheeks. Still Alina’s curiosity didn’t stop her from pelting both girls with snowballs and then running inside before either of them had a chance to answer in turn.
Despite Alina’s initial anxiety, she found that she was enjoying herself. There was none of the awkwardness she’d been fearing. Or even the feeling that they’d moved on to better things, while she’d stayed behind. It was easy to fall back into the same patterns, of laughing and sniping at each other.
Which was lucky, because the predicted winter storm did in fact make its way to them, and making an early escape really wasn’t an option.
Over dinner— which they’d all tried to contribute to, to varying degrees of success— their phones all buzzed with a weather advisory.
“Oh lovely, it’s going to get worse,” Zoya muttered.
Genya had her chin propped up in her hand. “I wonder, what are the odds of the wind just carrying this place off?”
David shook his head beside her. “Not very high. It’s a winter storm warning, we’re not getting tornadoes.”
“The wind’s still pretty bad though.”
“Provides atmosphere,” Nikolai said.
Nadia looked troubled. “What if we get stranded here?”
“There are enough supplies to last out for about a month. After that we may have to resort to cannibalism though.”
Alina groaned. “I have to go back to work on Monday.”
“Here’s hoping the snow will let up soon, and it’ll thaw out in the morning,” said Genya.
It did not.
They were all gathered in the living room, trying to decide on a movie, when the lights guttered out.
“Not to worry, not to worry,” came Nikolai’s voice from somewhere in the room. “We have a generator.”
It took her eyes a moment to adjust, but Zoya was close enough that Alina could see her shake her head. “A generator that’s clearly not working.”
“Perhaps it just needs fuel,” he said. “I’ll go have a look at it.
“What was that about freezing to death earlier?” Zoya muttered.
“Don’t be so optimistic,” Alina said, and laughed at Zoya’s answering huff. The two of them… almost seemed to be getting along well. A Christmas miracle.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and turned on its flashlight mode, blinking at the sudden brightness. The others were apparently having the same idea. More phone lights flipped on, illuminating the space. It probably wasn’t a good idea to waste the battery in case the electricity was out for a long time, but it was nice to be able to see anything, and if they really got desperate they could always charge their phones in their cars.
“Are there any candles anywhere?” she called out to Nikolai.
“In the kitchen, I believe,” he said.
“Okay, on it.” She rose from the sofa. “Anyone else want in on candle duty?”
Zoya got up quickly. “I do. I’ve had enough of sitting here in the dark.”
They carefully picked their way to the kitchen. Alina wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but it was already starting to feel colder inside.
“He neglected to say where exactly the candles could be.”
She glanced around. “Let’s just try any cupboards or drawers we didn’t get into when cooking? I don’t remember seeing any candles.”
They went to work. There was a lot to sift through, the kitchen didn’t look like it saw much use, but it was full of all sorts of things. She assumed that when it was used it was mostly by staff, barring current circumstances.
“He better not have meant birthday candles,” Zoya held up a tiny pack of them. They were striped in loud, primary colors, the kind meant for children.
“I hope not. I found a lighter though, so at least that’s something.”
Zoya suddenly paused, hands resting on the edges of the drawer she’d been sifting through. “Listen I… I’m sorry.”
Alina looked up. “What?”
“With the whole Mal thing back in junior year, I didn’t know you guys were, you know.”
“Oh.” She felt herself blushing. “I mean, we weren’t really. It was always on again, off again, that was one of the off points.”
Zoya tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Anyway I know we had our differences, but I never meant anything by that.”
“Water under the bridge.” It had been hurtful at the time, but it was long enough ago that she didn’t really mind anymore. Zoya seemed awkward enough about it now that her apology seemed genuine. And that was certainly appreciated.
Alina realized she’d been looking at Zoya too long. She opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, and instead she tore her gaze away.
Thankfully she was able to avoid any other awkward conversation by finally finding the candles in a cupboard. They were the long slender kind meant for dinner tables but they would do. They gathered them up in their arms, reaching for more in the pile at the same time, hands brushing for just a moment. Alina tried not to think too hard about it, or about why she wanted to keep thinking about it at all.
They carried them back to the living room, where Genya had also found a handful of scented candles and tea lights from the bathrooms. By then it was already noticeably colder. Nikolai was still gone, David too, ostensibly to help with the generator. That didn’t bode very well for the chances of it working.
“Now we can freeze to the scent of pumpkin spice and… ah this one’s sandalwood,” Genya said, idly reading the candle labels.
“I wonder if the fireplace works,” Alina mused.
“Worth a shot. I‘ll see if I can do something about it,” Nadia said.
“See if there’s a gas line, that’ll make our lives so much easier.”
“There is not.”
“Damn it.”
“It's fine, I found some logs. And we already have a means for setting it on fire.”
She blew out a breath. “Okay, that’s less dire.”
They did manage to get a fire going after only a little bit of struggling, strategically placed logs and years old magazines for kindling finally did the trick.
It took much longer though for Nikolai and David to admit defeat over the generator. But finally they came back to huddle by the fire with the rest of them.
Nikolai refused to be dejected though. “This is rather like camping wouldn’t you say?”
“No,” Zoya said in a deadpan.
“That’s the spirit!”
They managed to boil water in a pot for tea. And to Macgyver their movie plans into existence by hooking up Nadia’s laptop to Genya’s mobile hotspot. All through it, Alina kept sneaking glances at Zoya, and trying not to be too obvious about it. She just wanted to know what the other girl was thinking. That was all.
The electricity didn’t seem to be planning to come back any time soon. Nikolai had attempted calling the electric company to get an estimate for when it would be back on, but no real luck there.
Eventually, everyone else grew tired of waiting, and so they retreated to their respective rooms. Somehow that only left Alina and Zoya together by the fire, both nursing cups of tea.
Zoya knocked hers back . Alina hadn’t gotten close enough to sniff it, but she suspected it was spiked.
“Okay look. These are truly unique circumstances. They don’t count. It’s free time.”
Alina blinked. “What?”
“I like you.”
“What?”
“I like you, okay? There I said it. I wouldn’t have, but we barely see each other, and well I thought when else will we get to talk?” She took a deep breath. “When we escape this so-called vacation, do you want to go out sometime?”
“Like a date?”
She pursed her lips. “Like a date.”
Alina was too stunned to properly form thoughts. Zoya was asking her out. Zoya. If everything else about the day hadn’t been so strange, she would’ve thought this was a joke. But this trip was bizarre enough already, so why wouldn’t this happen too, while the clock hands moved into the first few minutes of Christmas Eve?
“Okay, sure,” she said finally. “I’d like that.”
“Really?”
“Were you expecting to be turned down?”
“No! Well. I just didn’t know what to expect.”
Alina bit her lip on a grin. Zoya almost looked nervous, she didn’t think she’d ever seen her at anything less than entirely confident. It was endearing. “So, what did you have in mind?”
“Something that doesn’t involve sitting in a cold dark room.”
“So no theatres, got it.”
Zoya snorted. “I wasn’t saying that.”
“We can figure something out.”
“Yeah, we can.” And there was a slow smile lighting up her face too. The same silly, giddy expression Alina had been trying to supress.