Do anything for you

There was shouting and swearing on the landing. All in Russian.

"You really shouldn't have taught her that," Lake said, glancing up from the computer screen to look across at the male sat on the couch. "Any of it."

Dimitri chuckled, lowering the remote control and standing up. "I'll go see to the problem," he replied before heading out of the room to follow the sound of the female voice yelling in both English and Russian.

Lake sighed softly and turned back to his work. "Next thing you know, we'll get in trouble because she was yelling like that in school..." he murmured to himself, since Dimitri had now left the room and was off seeing to the distressed teenager that was most likely the source of the banging occurring above his head.

Why had he agreed to adopt her again....?

Ah yes, because Noelle needed someone to be a father to her baby, since the real father had wanted nothing to do with the child. Seventeen years later, and Lake had quite the handful on his hands. Perhaps it was the lack of major female presence in her life. Noelle worked globally, while Lake was local. She didn't want to drag her child around the world with her, so left the little girl in Lake's capable and caring hands. He was, after, the little girl's surrogate father. Even if he was as gay as a tree full of parrots.

Dimitri had adored her. Since she was getting Lake's name, both Noelle and Lake thought it best the baby girl get a Russian name so that Dimitri had some part in her life.

He had also managed to affect more than just her name. She was as much the school rebel as Lake remembered Dimitri to be. Luckily, they had deterred her from smoking, pointless acts of sex and underage drinking when not in the controlled environment of home. Recently, she had dyed what was once golden brown hair to a black with flamingo pink streaks. No one at home minded, but the school had protested a little about it. Lake had stepped up, saying that if she wished to dye her hair, then that was her own choice.

The banging and shouting soon died down. Glancing up at the ceiling as if he could see through the foundations to what was going on, he tried to imagine just what was going on up there. He was being distracted from his work, and decided that it was a lost cause. Pushing away from the computer desk that sat in the corner of the lounge, Lake headed for the stairs, and up to his daughter's room.

Reaching the landing, Lake could hear Dimitri speaking in Russian to the girl. After being with the male for well over twenty years, he still hadn't managed to pick up the language quite well enough to fully understand what was being said, but he had a grasp to be able to say the odd few things to Dimitri's family whenever he met them.

Leaning against the door frame to their little princesses room, he saw Dimitri pacing over the cream carpet while the teen sat on her bed. "So the yelling was because...?"

"Tatyana is having a few teacher-student issues," answered Dimitri, pausing to look at the male in the doorway. "Something about one of the teachers constantly failing her."

"I can tell him myself, Dimitri," Tatyana said.

"Verochka..."

"Before you two start arguing, can I please be clued in on why Tatyana is having problems at school?"

"Sorry, Lakeski."

"Yeah, sorry Dad."

Lake beamed at them both. "So...?"

"Mr. Hareson is a total and complete jerk!" Tatyana said, bringing her fists down upon her bed. "He's always scrutinizing my uniform and it has to be perfect otherwise he gives me detention. If that's not enough, he finds flaws with my mathematics homework! It's like I can't do anything right!" She let out a growl and flopped onto her back on her bed, pulling a pillow up over her head.

Lake looked over at Dimitri and shrugged. "See? This is why I'm gay. Emotional females are not my thing."

The Russian male laughed softly at his love's comment. "Do you want one of us to go in and talk to this Mr. Hareson?"

Tatyana sighed heavily. "What could will that do?" she murmured from beneath her pillow. "He thinks I'm an idiot."

"Have you done anything to provoke him?"

"Dad!" She sat up suddenly, tossing the pillow at her father.

Dodging the flying pillow, Lake made his way from door to his princess' bed, sitting down beside her. Hand reached out and tender fingers drifted through the soft curls in her dyed hair. "T, you know that we're just trying to piece this puzzle together with only one part of the image. Mr. Hareson must have a reason for disliking just you."

She looked up at Lake with her big, green-blue eyes. "I've heard he's one of those anti-gay types. Lisa said that maybe he's mean to me because of my upbringing. You don't think he's homophobic do you?"

"It's a possibility," Dimitri added, coming over and sitting at Tatyana's other side. "We should go and talk to this teacher and find out why he's discriminating you."

"And there'll be no punching him," Lake put in with a grin curling his lips. Leaning down, he kissed the girl on the forehead. "No more shouting on the landing. It disrupts the flow of energy throughout the house and the Feng Shui in the dinning room gets angry."

Tatyana giggled at his comment, then rolled over to give him a hug. Rolling to her other side, she gave one to Dimitri. "You two are the best any girl could ask for."

"Oh, your mother called while you were at school!" Lake announced, jumping up with excitement. "She's coming home for a whole two months! She'll be here next week. Do you wanna skip school and come pick her up from the airport?"

"You're really not helping her get through high school, Lakeski."