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Title: Camping?!: Chapter Four: Princess In Toyland

Author: Allison Wonderland

Rating: PG

Summary: Princess goes shopping at the toy store.

Warning(s): Language.

Disclaimer: See chapter one. Additionally, I own all the characters in this chapter too.

Note(s): None.

Two hours after ending his phone call with Nicky, Princess was finally ready to leave the apartment. He felt he had sacrificed greatly by taking only half and hour in the shower when normally it took at least an hour for him to exfoliate, wash, and deep condition his hair. Actually doing his hair – what with the combing and the brushing and the blow drying and deciding which style to wear it in – and deciding what clothes and accessories to wear had taken an hour and a half which, considering he was Princess, was also a sacrifice because it had taken him as much as four hours just to get dressed once – although that once had been because he and Nicky were going to the MTV Music Awards where Nicky had won…something.

In the end he had decided on something simple, a rarity for Princess. He wore his wavy golden blonde hair in a ponytail high on the back of his head with a gold and amethyst dragonfly hair clip on either side of it. His clothing was also surprisingly simple: a lavender cap sleeve shirt with a white spaghetti strap tank top over it on which the word ‘Princess’ was written in glittery purple script beneath a crown made of royal purple sequins, his favorite pair of distressed denim True Religion skinny jeans, and a pair of strappy gold Prada kitten heels that he had found on sale online for only five hundred dollars.

His favorite black and gold Louis Vuitton messenger bag – the one he always carried when he went out during the day because at night he carried his favorite little gold clutch purse made by the same designer – was always hanging on the same hook – the same one his coat was hung on when the weather made it necessary – in the closet in the front foyer beside the main door to the apartment. He took it out, checked the contents to make sure he had his credit cards, enough cash for a taxi, and the necessary make up should touch ups be needed, dropped his cell phone into the bag alongside everything else. Princess took one last look at himself in the full length mirror hanging on the inside of the closet door. Satisfied that nothing about his appearance had changed in the time it had taken him to walk from the bedroom – where he had last checked his appearance - to the foyer, he blew a kiss to himself, shut the closet door, opened the front door, and stepped out into the hallway, eager to start an afternoon of shopping, even if it was only at a toy store. Of course, there was that new little boutique he had been meaning to stop into on the same block as the toy store – he thought it was called Diamond’s – and if he had time he would, of course, stop in there and further attempt to max out his credit card.

The doorman, a snooty looking ex-Englishman who was actually rather nice – to Princess anyway but that could have had something to do with the rather large tips the boy was prone to giving anyone he considered in a ‘hired help’ position who helped him in some way - already had a taxi waiting for him when Princess stepped out of the elevator in the lobby of the apartment building. He tipped the doorman as Nicky had instructed him to do (‘Princess are always polite to the hired help, darling’) and slid into the back of the taxi. He made a face as the sticky plastic seat touched his jeans and made a mental note to wash them the second he got home. Or to send them out to be washed the second he arrived home. If he washed them himself the harsh chemicals in the New York City tap water was totally going to ruin the manicure he had gotten only yesterday.

“FAO Schwartz,” he told the driver. Princess settled back into the seat as much as he dared and tried not to touch the sticky plastic any more than he had to. This was so disgusting! He would much rather have used Nicky’s personal limo in which there was even an unlimited supply of champagne. However, Nicky had made him promise not to unless it was a special occasion, as the long black car was too likely to be noticed by stalkers and other undesirable sorts.

There was relatively little traffic – at least in terms of New York City traffic; for Shady Lake, Virginia where Princess used to live the amount of traffic would have been considered unbearable – and Princess reached his destination in almost record time. He never actually shopped at the huge toy store except for at Christmas and on the rare occasions when Nicky let him take Minako shopping with him but there were several boutiques on the same street that he loved. Stepping from the taxi, he resolved to cleanse himself by shopping at every one of them. He deserved some retail therapy after the hell that was that taxi ride. Happy that his ordeal was over he paid the driver more than he thought the brief ride in the alarmingly unkempt car had been worth.

There was a sign announcing the name of the toy store over the door. It was large and tacky and, in Princess’s opinion, so in need of redesigning. But then Princess was a designer of sorts and believed that about most things. He stopped for a moment to window shop, hoping he could find something in the big front window to buy Nicky’s daughter and nieces. If so he would not have to spend hours in the toy store. He could hurry in, buy what he wanted, hurry out, and get to that lovely little boutique – Diamond’s – just down the street. Then maybe he would still have time to go home and get ready before he went to meet Nicky at the airport. And he totally had to call for the car to be brought around at the right time because he was not riding in another taxi today, despite what Nicky had said about the limo being too noticeable.

Princess turned his attention back to the window in front of him to peruse the toys it offered. There was a lifelike model train set with a lifelike miniature village and the whole thing was built to scale. It was impressive and Princess himself would not entirely mind playing with it as it was more impressive than the train set he had owned as a child – that one had only been cheap plastic to begin with and had been handed down through Mary Jane, Jake, Robert, Josh, and Sarah before getting to Princess and half of it was missing by that time. But neither of Ayame’s children liked trains and Minako was too young to play with some of the pieces. Princess let his gaze travel upward. On the shelves above the train set were dolls of all sorts: Madame Alexander dolls, Robert Tonner dolls, dolls that were designed to look like newborn babies, dolls that were designed to look like toddlers, Barbies, Bratz, baby dolls, Corolle dolls, soft dolls, porcelain dolls, doll houses, Middleton dolls…

Miki likes dolls, Princess recalled from Christmas seven months before. Miki was Ayame’s oldest daughter and, at nine years old, dolls were one of her absolute favorite things. Princess had been to Ayame’s house once when Nicky’s tour had stopped at a town close by and had immediately been dragged up to Miki’s bedroom to meet every one of her dolls. He was sure she had more than any toy store did, as it had taken hours to be introduced to all of them. Last Christmas Nicky and Princess had bought Miki several Madame Alexander dolls for her collection and a gift certificate to design her own doll online. Princess supposed he could always buy her another gift certificate but he prided himself on knowing Miki well, even though he only saw her a handful of times every year. Miki liked immediate gratification even more than Princess did and if he bought her a gift certificate she would have the tantrum to end all tantrums – and possibly the world – unless she got to use it right now. So a gift certificate was out but maybe he could buy her another doll. There were always more Madame Alexander dolls. He was sure Allie did not have any of them and some of them were absolutely gorgeous; some of them Princess himself would have lusted after a few years ago, even though the only dolls he was able to play with when he was little had been Sarah’s and that was only when his father was not home or otherwise occupied somewhere on their farm with something that would take several hours.

And for Virginia… Princess had no idea what to get. Ayame’s six year old daughter loved dogs almost as much as her older sister loved dolls. She was, however, allergic to the real thing. Princess could sympathize. When Izumi had first taken him in - after his father had kicked him out and it was decided that it was probably unwise for an underage boy to be living with a gay rock star – Princess had been constantly ill for almost a month. It had not been anything serious: mild rashes that went away within hours, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, his eyes had itched, his throat had been sore, and there had been dark circles under his eyes even though he had been sleeping better with Nicky holding him every night than he had since being committed to the hospital. After extensive tests it was discovered that he was allergic to dogs, which made sense because Izumi had five of them in her house and Princess had taken to letting them sleep on his bed at night because he hated being alone before Nicky came to bed. After the dogs were removed from his bedroom and everything cleaned, his symptoms had cleared up. Although the dogs had remained in the house Princess was ordered to have limited contact with them. Princess had missed the dogs in bed with him every night and that was when Nicky had taken to bringing him a stuffed dog every time he came up for the weekend. Still, Princess had missed having real dogs to cuddle, even though he had Penelope. Their first Christmas together Nicky had found a breeder who sold Shih Tzus that were genetically modified to be hypoallergenic. He had given Princess a pair of puppies for Christmas. The previous Christmas he and Nicky had given Virginia two of the puppies from Princess’s dogs. So that left out just forgetting about giving her a toy and giving her a real puppy. Not that his current litter of puppies were ready to leave their mother yet. So maybe he could just get her a stuffed dog. She would like that. After all, it was a dog. Sort of. And Minako…Princess had no idea what to buy Minako but finding something for Nicky’s only daughter would not be a problem at all. Princess could – and last Christmas had – spend an entire day shopping for Minako.

Happy that he had resolved the problem at hand – well, sort of – and determined not to spend more than an hour in the toy store, Princess walked up the steps outside and pushed open the door. The air inside the door was almost cold, a welcome change from the heat of late June, almost July. A bell rang when the door opened and the girl sitting behind the counter looked up. She was about an inch taller than Princess in his flat shoes, putting her at about five feet, five inches tall with the deepest brown eyes he had ever seen on anyone except his sister Sarah. Her skin was almost as tan as Princess’s own but her hair, pulled back into a simple ponytail, was obviously dyed black. She wore the store’s uniform green shirt with a name tag pinned on it that read ‘Claudia’ and a pair of black dress pants, also part of the store’s uniform.

“Can I help you?” she asked politely, if a little reservedly, turning her attention to Princess before the door had even shut itself behind him.

“No, thank you,” Princess said. Nicky’s command that he always be polite to the hired help was firmly fixed in his mind, along with the headache that the vitamin C and Vitamin Water and Tylenol his boyfriend had told him to take had not helped. It was not going to be long before the headache from hell over ruled the ‘be polite, Princess’ order and Princess gave in to the pissed off toddler living inside him. He made his way into the depths of the toy store, carefully walking around toys and children.

It was time to for Mission: Impossible to begin.

It took him well over an hour but he finally found something for each of the three girls that was almost within the price range Nicky had set. For Virginia he found a backpack shaped like a pink stuffed poodle and a big green stuffed dog that looked almost exactly like his own Penelope. Except that no one – apart from Nicky on occasion and that was only to move her out of his way in bed or to find her wherever Princess had last left her that day – touched his Penelope. Not even Minako. For Miki, counting on her still loving dolls seven months after he had last had to shop for her, Princess had found an interactive baby doll whose box claimed it ate, slept, cried, and talked and a Bratz Rock Angel. He gave the display a moment’s thought then picked out an ice skating outfit to go with the Bratz doll. Miki claimed she wanted to be an ice skater and a rock star like Uncle Nicky and a Bratz Rock Angel doll along with an ice skating outfit covered both of her future career choices. Besides, it was a doll, which he was counting on the nine-year-old still having affection for. Minako was without a doubt – at least in Princess’s mind – the easiest of the three girls to shop for, if only because, at only two years old, she liked everything. However, stuffed toys were among some of her favorite things. Equipped with that knowledge Princess had found a stuffed bear about the same size as Minako and priced just slightly less than the limit Nicky had set. On his way back to the front of the store he just happened to see a pink stuffed dog that looked exactly like his own Penelope, only smaller, whom Nicky’s daughter loved trying to get her sticky little hands on every time she came to visit them in the city. Of course he had to buy that too.

His shopping basket full, he glanced at his watch to see what time it was, hoping he would have time to stop at Starbucks on his way to that little boutique he so wanted to visit. “Fuck,” Princess whispered. His choice of expressions earned him a glare from several of the parents shopping with small children. He made a face. Although his head was pounding even more fiercely – and not the good kind of fierce like the clothes Raven and Taylor designed – and he wanted to just tell all of them to fuck off and be done with it – damn politically correct people – he could, of course, see the point of not cursing around small children, particularly not ones who were just learning to talk or in that stage where they repeated every new word they heard. After her last stay with Nicky and Princess, Minako had gone back to Ayame’s house again – where she was currently living while Nicky was away on tour – having learned a new word, said word being ‘fuck.’

He hurried – as fast as he was able to with his shopping basket full to over flowing – back to the front of the store to check out counter. The girl who had been there when he had first come into the store – Claudia – was still there. She smiled at him sweetly - obviously a physical affliction that came from working at a toy store for far too long, or so Princess thought. Is this all?” she asked.

You don’t see me dragging anything else about with me, do you? he thought. But he knew better than to voice that thought out loud, due to the lecture Nicky had given him the last time he had done something of the sort. “It had better be,” he says instead. His excess of partying, lack of sleep, and major hangover were taking more of a toll on him and his flamboyant personality than he had thought they would. His head was beginning to ache in the same way it had earlier just after he had woken up and only a venti vanilla non-fat chai with honey from Starbucks was going to cure. Even though Nicky expressly told him not to drink anything with caffeine in it when he had a hangover. Whatever. He was having one anyway. He leaned on the counter, subtly massaging his head as Claudia did her job as slowly as humanly possible. Obviously she did not recognize him, which Princess found impossible, because if she had she would have worked possible. Everyone in New York City knew that Princess liked instant gratification and was unhappy unless he was given what he wanted at the speed of light. Or faster. And an unhappy Princess equaled trouble for whomever had made him unhappy. But today he could not bring himself to care.

Venti vanilla not-fat chai with honey, venti vanilla non-fat chai with honey, venti vanilla non-fat chai with honey, Princess repeated silently to himself. It was what he was looking forward to and was going to get him and his headache through the next several minutes. Starbucks, Starbucks, Starbucks, he began to chant inside his head when his previous thought suddenly became too long for him to keep repeating. Starbucks, Starbucks, Starbucks. It helped tremendously.

Finally Claudia finished. “All right,” she said brightly – way too brightly in Princess’s opinion. “That’ll be three hundred and forty five dollars and fifty cents.”

Princess winced. This time it was not because of his headache. At least not completely although his head suddenly hurt worse as he swiped his credit card through the machine. Nicky was not going to like this. Of course his boyfriend would never actually do anything to him because he had seriously gone over the limit Nicky had set for this shopping trip. He would give Princess that trademark smirk all the fans went mad over and say something like, “Honestly, Princess, are you trying to bankrupt me?” then threaten him with a spanking the next time it happened but it was not as if Nicky was in any danger of going bankrupt, not when he had amassed several million dollars from his ice skating career and several million more from his rock star career, not to mention the trust fund his parents had set up for him that he had come into on his twenty first birthday. Princess doubted if even Nicky really had any idea how much he was worth.

“You could drop the price a little,” he said. One of Princess’s greatest talents was haggling for the best bargains. “How about three hundred dollars and I pay in cash?” After visiting an ATM, he reminded himself. Unfortunately his bargaining talents never seemed to work here. However, he had never encountered Claudia here before and she seemed to like him so far.

Claudia shrugged and popped her gum loudly. On any other day it would not have bothered Princess because he often did the same thing near people he disliked just because he disliked them. But today it just annoyed the hell out of him and made him want to reconsider doing that same thing to Nicky’s record executives. “Sorry,” she said. “I just work here. I’m not allowed to give discounts unless you have one of our discount card.”

Princess rolled his eyes. Damn discounts cards. He was sure he had one for every store in New York City but since he did not come to FAO Schwartz on a regular basis…well, he definitely had to get one. But he would wait until his next visit. Except maybe… “My boyfriend does,” Princess told Claudia. Or at least he thought Nicky had the famous toy store’s discount card. Every time Nicky came home for an extended period of time and Minako came to stay with the infamously famous couple he took his daughter to the toy store and bought her more toys than she could possibly play with in a year. “But he has it,” the more than a little bit hung over drama queen added belatedly.

“Sorry.” Claudia shrugged again. “I can’t give you a discount then.”

“I guess it was worth trying,” Princess admitted grudgingly. He signed the electronic receipt and confirmed the transaction then put his credit card back in his bag. “You do deliver, don’t you?” Princess asked. There was no way he was going to carry all this back to the apartment. Besides it was already four o’ clock and he still had to stop at that cute little boutique down the street. That little pink dress that had been in the window the other day – and he hoped so badly that it was still there – had his name written all over it. Not literally or anything, not yet any way. But he had just finished his first year of classes at the New York City Institute Of Fashion And Design and would be working for Raven and Taylor at Fantasticka next summer. In three years, it would be his name on the dress in the window. Except only on the tag or maybe in a few other strategic places that would not look too horrible because otherwise that would ruin it. Although Raven had – at least when they had designed their Trailer Trash collection – been known to randomly scrawl ‘Fantasticka’ across the front of a piece of clothing in permanent marker if he thought it did not have enough decoration on it.

Claudia confirmed that the store did deliver and Princess made arrangements to have the toys gift wrapped and delivered – for free – to Nicky’s apartment building in about an hour and a half. The doorman would take the delivery and have it sent up to the apartment when Princess asked him to. That gave him time to make a quick stop at Diamond’s and get home to get ready to meet Nicky at the airport. If Nicky’s plane came in at six o’ clock but was an hour late that meant he would get in at seven o’ clock. It was four o’ clock now which meant he only had three hours to get his dress, get home, get ready to meet Nicky, and go to the airport. It was so not enough time.

Since the boutique was only three buildings over from the toy store Princess chose to walk there instead of trying to find another cab that was cleaner than the last one – he thought that was probably impossible anyway. He stopped in at the Starbucks briefly to order his venti vanilla non-fat chai with honey. While he was waiting for his order to be filled he took out his cell phone and called the car service Nicky often used when he was in town. Princess would have rather used the limo but he knew that was off limits. Besides, he was going to use it later anyway and that would cause enough of a stir among the media. The cars from the car service were more eye-catching than taxis – and a lot cleaner too – but lots of important – or just disgustingly rich – people used town cars to get around and they were pretty much normal for the city.

After getting his drink and taking the first sip – which was pure bliss – he continued on his way down to the boutique and stopped in front of it to be sure the dress he wanted was still there. It was and he smiled just at seeing it. Princess walked through the revolving door – he loved those things! – and emerged in the air conditioned interior of Diamond’s, the hottest new boutique in New York City. It had only opened a few days ago and Princess had not yet had a chance to try to max out the credit card his boyfriend had given him there. Yet. But he was about to remedy that.

“Hello. Welcome to Diamond’s. How may I help you?” the woman who was obviously in charge of the establishment asked in a nasally French accented voice. She was much older than Princess, maybe as old as forty years old and much taller but her height was most likely the produck of a pair of Michael Kors ankle boots with three inch stiletto heels. She wore a Bill Tornade black pencil skirt and a Donna Cody chiffon ruffle front sleeveless silk blouse and sported the same tan everyone who was anyone seemed to have. Her hair, a light blondish brown color was pulled back into a simple bun. Her green eyes looked enquiringly at Princess.

“Yes,” Princess said confidently. “I would like to see the Adrianna Papell dress in the window, please,” he said politely – that damned command Nicky had given him! – “In a size two,” he added as an after thought.

The woman – who was not wearing a nametag – looked down her long beak like nose at him. She seemed to be trying to decide if he were serious or not. Princess suspected that she had not expected to have a skinny boy with long golden blonde hair – who really looked more like a girl anyway – come into her store and ask for a dress. A pink, poofy, frilly one at that. She obviously has no idea who I am, he rationalized. Still, Nicky was a rock star and Princess was beginning to become famous in his own right, what with his modeling and his connection to Nicky and the almost constant appearance of his name on Page Six for something he and Raven and Taylor did while they were clubbing. And he found it unbelievable that anyone would fail to recognize one half of the civilized world’s It Couple. “Of course you do,” she said snidely at last. “Will you be wanting to try that on?” she asked. She doubted he was actually going to wear the dress. The only reason she was asking if he wanted to try it on was to prove to both of them that he was only one of the spoiled rotten teenagers who so loved to cause trouble for the working person. And there was no way a boy could fit into a size two. He was tiny, possibly the tiniest boy she had ever met, but there was no way he was that tiny.

“Yes,” Princess told her. “I would.” It would take longer if he tried it on but if he wanted something new to wear to meet Nicky and it was better to try it on now and not have to bring it back later or have adjustments made to it if it did not fit. And it would show the bitch – and no, she was not a bitch in the cute way that Princess was but in the nasty, someone who did not like Princess way – that he was going to wear it and that he could fit into a size two.

“I’ll just see if we have it then. The dressing rooms are just over there.” She pointed to a row of curtained off cubicles roughly the size of large phone booths and left Princess to show himself there while she disappeared into the storage room.

Princess slowly made his way in the direction she had indicated, taking his time and looking at the displays of clothing, shoes, and jewelry laid out for the perusal of customers. By the time he reached the dressing rooms he had found several other things he just had to have and the sales woman was waiting for him there. “Thank you,” he said when she handed him the dress.

“Will that be all?” she asked.

“No,” Princess told the seemingly stressed woman. “I want those four pairs of Tavernitti jeans-“ he pointed to the jeans in question one pair at a time “-those royal purple pajama pants-“ Princess pointed to the sweater in question, unsure who the designer was and for once not really caring “-those two John Galliano t-shirts, that scarf, that bag, that bag, that bag-“ all Louis Vuitton of course “-those Heatherette boots, that blue unicorn t-shirt, and those shiny strappy baby pink BCBG sandals. All the same size as the dress please, the shoes in size 9, and I won’t be needing to try any of it on.” He turned to go into the dressing room. “Oh,” he said, turning back to her and handing her the credit card, “just charge it to this card and have everything but the sandals and this dress delivered tomorrow. Thanks.” Finished he turned and went into the dressing room without another word.