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capsensislagamoprh · 4 months

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CHA 5

Christophe knew a lot of people. He knew fashion designers trying to make it, models desperate for a gig, crew looking for anyone to sign off on production work just for the college credit, and he knew how to get them together at a moment's notice. What he couldn’t do was recreate the missing designs. Victor had been absolutely distraught to realize that some of his pieces were positively wrecked by the move, while other less spectacular pieces made it through just fine. In the end, he was left with a set of angora sweaters, slimline slack jeans - or sheans, as he liked to call them - that combined the elegance of high end office wear with the durability of street fabrics, and a single pair of sheer socks he’d made from scraps of a disastrous attempt to make panty hose more fun and less annoying.

It was a frantic week of pulling fabrics, bolt by bolt, from boxes, tubes, and any piece of clothing that had been destroyed, trying to make something new, exciting, something that would not only delight the senses, but bring some whimsy into an otherwise very monotone world. Why everyone thought beige was the be-all, end-all of the last two seasons, he wasn’t sure, but come hell or high water, he’d see this change. “Don’t get me wrong,” he babbled to the man behind the counter, “it’s a fine color. It has its place. But so much? All the time. Non. It’s - how you say?” Victor waved a hand in front of his face, letting his jaw go slack, eyes blank. “Steklyannyy pritsel?”

“Terne?” came a voice rich as clotted cream. “Means dull, boring.”

Victor turned, eyes bright. “Yes! This is the word!” It was the man in the jeans. The delicate blond boy was standing with his hands behind his back by a selection of buttons, looking exceptionally bored. He must have noticed Victor’s flicker of recognition. His eyes were beautiful. Long lashed, blue, wide and earnest. Not just any blue. Cobalt. They caught the light in just such a way… “Hello,” Victor said with his friendliest smile.

“Hello. Sorry, I didn't mean to step in. You just seemed to be a little lost with the language.”

“Oh, yes. It mixes with the others sometimes. Ty govorish' po-russki?”

The man winced. “Not that well, if I’m being honest. Knew someone who spoke it pretty well. Taught me a few phrases, some things here and there.”

“But that’s marvelous! Learning something new is never out of style,” Victor purred. The boy by the buttons huffed, turning his head away. “Your … son?”

“Ah. Yes. He’s supposed to be choosing the buttons to fix his shirt with,” Mr. Cobalt Eyes said with a slight frown. The boy turned slowly towards the display again, grabbing four sets of ladybug shaped novelty buttons, handing them to … Victor really needed to find out who this handsome man was.

“Victor, by the way. Nikiforov.” He made a move to lean on the pile of fabrics being measured and weighed, casual interest in his gaze.

“Trent. Trent Dale.” He put a firm hand on the boy’s shoulder. “This is Yuri.” The boy stared at Victor, eyes as viridian as the sea. Vivid colors ran in the family, it seemed.

“Nice to meet you, Yuri.” The boy said nothing, clutching the buttons tightly. “He must have his mother’s hair,” Victor added, trying to prolong the conversation. Trent was tall, and handsome in a corporate way. Victor could almost see him dressed in suits, polished shoes gleaming as he stepped from his bedroom, freshly showered, smelling like the promise of sex and money. Yuri frowned, shuffling uncomfortably. Victor realized he had missed something Trent was saying.

“ - it’s okay, though. We get by. Don’t we Yuri?” He shook the boy’s shoulder, jostling a mumbled nonsense out of him.

“Oh, well, I suppose that’s all we can do,” Victor covered smoothly. “Try to get by. So, what happened to the buttons?”

“Oh, that. Small accident. Popped one. It got lost in the shuffle, I suppose. Rather than walk around with one missing, we decided to replace them all. Although, I don’t know about ladybugs. Little out of place, don’t you think?” Trent addressed the last half to Victor, half to Yuri. The boy stiffened, looking at the buttons as if trying to figure out if he wanted to fight about it or not. Victor took pity.

“I think it adds a bit of whimsy to the design. As long as the colors don't clash horribly, it just makes it fun.” Crouching to be more at the boy’s eye level, he shone a smile that bent his lips in at the bow. “What color is the shirt?”

Yuri glanced at Trent who nodded. “It’s black,” Yuri answers in a bite that seemed to cut off the rest of his sentence.

“Is it a dress shirt?” Yuri nodded. “A black dress shirt. Full sleeves? Bit of a wider collar?” The blond’s eyes widened. He shook his head. Another glance at Trent, then he turned back to Victor, swaying towards him just that little bit. “It’s got a mandarin collar, and it’s trimmed in red, Like the cuffs, and it’s long.”

“Is the black very shiny?”

Yuri wrinkled his nose. “No.”

Victor couldn’t tell if that little pout was because he wanted it to be shiny, or if the boy was offended by the very idea. His eyes burned as he looked at the fabrics, then lowered his head to look at the buttons he was clutching. “Well, in that case, ladybug buttons would be perfect. A little pop of color to accentuate what’s already there, and a little childhood wonder. Snakes and snails, yes? Why not some insects too? Particularly when they…” Victor’s mind went blank, searching for the word. “Slivat'sya? Sootvetstvovat'?” he muttered.

“Da. Oni podoydut i ne slishkom bol'shiye…” The words trailed off as Yuri stepped back, biting his lower lip. Victor beamed. “You speak po-russki very well,” he chimed, throwing a glance to Trent as the boy clammed up. “Well…” Standing, Victor looked over his shoulder at the clerk neatly packaging his trims and notions. “If you ever need button advice again…”

“Be hard to ask if I don’t have any way to contact you,” Trent smiled. Those teeth were so white, Victor could have gone blind.

“Oh! Yes.” Snatching one of the store's business cards, he pulled a fabric flower from the display vase, revealing it to be a pen in clever disguise. Jotting down a number with a small winky face holding fingers up in a peace sign, Victor handed it over. “I’ll be busy for a week or two, but I'm free after that.”

Trent looked at the card curiously. “Interesting.” Then those blue, blue eyes glanced at the many bags. “Making something big?”

“Massive,” Victor purred. Then he chuckled. “I’m making my spring collection. Again.”

“You’re a fashion designer?”

“I will be. I’m at PCA.”

Trent gave an impressed little nod, considering Victor. “A hard school to get into.”

“I did my best. I am going to take on the world, one fashion disaster at a time.” He spared Yuri a conspiratorial wink.

“I look forward to seeing it.” Trent’s easy smile almost had Victor walking out of the shop without his copious amount of goods.

____

CHA 6

Victor spent the next three days bent over the kitchen table, back aching, hands smudged, eyes strained as he littered the floor with rejected designs and sketches. He had his originals, but they were old, and while there was something he could draw from them, there was no joy in the way they lingered on old problems, previous mistakes. Instead he pulled the idea of it from the place it originally came. The jumpsuit - that recalled a particular night at a club that ran well into the next morning, having to face down an unforgiving instructor and her brutal, soul crushing constructive criticisms - needed a refit. A modern twist that fit more than the desperate need to not look like he’d been wearing the drink stained clothes from the night before under it. It was giving him problems. Jumpsuits were pretty much fashionable or made you look like a dock worker. It was hair pulling maddening.

“Min vän,” Christophe cooed, sliding a cup of warm tea under Victor’s nose. “This is not good for you. You need to rest. Let your mind recover, gain inspiration.”

“I’ve tried, Chris! I tried,” Victor cried, using the cup to warm his hands. “I just…” His lips drew tight as he threw his feet on the seat of his chair, folding in on himself. Leaning against the wall, Victor closed his eyes. “It’s not working.”

“Okay.” Christophe drew a chair over, sitting close. “Tell me what you were thinking when you created it?”

“I didn’t want to throw up on my presentation, and I wanted to pass.”

Christophe scoffed. “Sure. We all want that. What was really going on?”

Victor searched his mind for a witty segway only to come up flat. Sighing, he set the cup down. “I just wanted to hide. I’d done something stupid,” Christophe’s mock shocked expression withstanding, it felt good to be able to speak about that very strange twenty four hours. “I’d been stressing about finals.”

“As you do.”

“As I do. I needed to get out, clear my head. I let myself get talked into going to the club.”

Christophe shrugged. “Nothing wrong with a little fun.”

“At nine p.m. On a Tuesday. During finals week. The night before my organic harvesting and natural fiber production's economic impact on the future of fashion presentation.”

Christophe winced. “You spent months agonizing over that! The late night calls, the desperate pleas for help researching.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Victor muttered.

“The way you sobbed into your sketches when you couldn’t find drafter blue pencils.”

“The color disappears once ink is overlaid! They’re worth their weight in rubles!”

“Your sudden desire to become an oil rigger to avoid the whole section on soil erosion, and sustainability.”

“It’s a touchy topic.”

“Your inability to admit you were addicted to lattés for a whole month.”

“I didn’t know four a day would make me gain six pounds, okay?!”

“Sure it wasn’t the stress eating?”

Victor shoved him with his foot. “As I was saying!” Christophe smiled into his cup, eyes sparkling. Victor huffed before leaning back against the wall with a little wiggle. “There was this guy, and he was just… so fine. Strong, and firm, and - “ Victor sucked in his bottom lip, biting down on it as he made a little grunting sound.

“Sure sounds like it,” Christophe grinned.

“I thought so… until I woke up to the sound of him talking to someone while I was in his bed.” Christophe winced. “Same old song and dance, da? One night stand, already committed, and torn between tearing through, setting everything aflame, and slinking away, tail between legs.”

“I take it you went with option two?”

“I went with option two.” His head hit the wall when he threw it back. Rubbing the spot, he crossed his legs, sitting up more in the chair. “My clothes were covered in spilled drink and… other things.” Christophe nodded sympathetically. “I needed something to cover it up. I found a jumpsuit in this awful tan color just hanging on the line outside, and took it. I spent the whole rush to campus trying to find things to style it, and just went with using it as part of the presentation. Added a whole bit about how sustainability was good, but it couldn’t be allowed to cover individuality, and sort of…” He made a motion indicating he’d unzipped it from neck to crotch.

“How did that work out for you?”

“I got a pass, so not too bad.”

“I’ll bet you did,” Christophe winked. “Well, as thrilling as that story is, what are you going to do about this?” He motioned to the design. “It’s not too complicated. Pants are a bit much. Maybe shorts?”

Victor sat up. “Shorts. Christophe! You’re a genius!”

“Naturally. Why?”

“Shorts! If I turn the pants into shorts with a roll cuff, side strap buckles to hold them up, they become adjustable, allowing for more range of use. Increase the drop of the collar, add a little extra here so it flaped to the side in open neck mandarin, a-la-militare, add whimsy with the buttons and piping at the edges… a wide belt with a buckle that has shine, little sparkle with the accessories… Look at this!”

Christophe peaked over Victor’s arm to see the sketch produced. “Loose top kitten heeled boots, scrunched socks with pops of color… you know min vän, you may make a fashion designer yet.”

cha 1&2, cha 3&4

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