[ the one benefit in smashing her life to pieces is how little time it leaves for grief — too preoccupied with picking up the splinters and rearranging its shape into something better. a present she can bear to look at. a future that isn't decorated with exquisite collars and golden chains.
despite it, nikolai's absence aches like a hole carved into her chest, hollow and oozing — that one missing shard she hasn't found a way to repair, its edges pricking her whenever she scrolls through the countless posts her feud with aleksander has stirred into a frenzy. together, she and nikolai had promised, but it's baghra's sour glare at her side in nearly every photograph splashed across the page of those rabid, frothing tabloids. baghra's name attached to her own in every article that comes forward to share alina starkov's story. baghra's connection to aleksander that lends credible weight to the allegations littered throughout, baghra's money that has kept him from wiping them from existence in the press, baghra's presence that makes it impossible to sweep every accusation out of view and back into aleksander's closet of skeletons.
skimming through public reactions is an exercise in self-torment. the unflattering angles are expected — feud between bitter exes over morozova corporation ownership: simple lover's spat or something more? — but the endearments are worse. sankta alina. sol koroleva. it's a gamble between which outlets intend it as praise, and those that have twisted her motives into ugly materialism and mocked her with it, but — at least nikolai can't ever punish himself for inviting the circus into her private bubble when she's welcomed them herself, can't look at her and see only dominik's spirit hovering above her when her reputation is of her own making now.
she tries to take what small comfort she can in that, and in the break mal's forced upon her, seizing her phone the moment it had buzzed with its newest notifications to prevent her morbid curiosity from committing the worst atrocity: skimming through the latest whispers and rumors splashed across her screen while tucked away in the corner of nikolai's home. it doesn't fend off the squinting stares that try to place her identity in the crowd of party-goers, though they aren't so different from her own raking through the mass of writhing bodies in her futile effort to find nikolai among them.
stumbling across his study is mostly luck, if not instinct — the natural path her feet have always taken whenever he's vanished from her sight, knowing the door would swing open to reveal him inside and hunched over a new project. the room she's always disappeared into herself, sketchbook in hand, to curl up on the couch and find her peaceful haven in the scrape of charcoal across a page.
she has to blink once, twice, to assure herself he isn't a memory produced by a desperate mind. her steps are quiet as she slips inside, the door softly clicking closed behind her, as she kicks the flats off of her feet. ]
Hi. [ gently spoken, like she doesn't want to disturb the peace of this room or his nimble fingers pinning string across a board. more than anything, it's an awkward greeting — winded and struck dumb, grasping for the right words. in his absence, she had forgotten how handsome he was, struck by it again — as if it's only her first time seeing him in the flesh. she takes another stride forward, shifting her weight from foot to foot, still lingering uneasily near the door. just in case he does decide to toss her out. ] I hear it's bad etiquette for hosts not to join their own parties.
[ she could wince with how stupid it sounds, fumbling and overly casual. feeling woefully underprepared for this, she fiddles nervously with the edge of her sleeve — his, in actuality, as she drowns in the navy suit jacket she'd repurposed over black tights and a short slip dress beneath. ]
I've been looking for you. [ there. that's more painfully honest. ] Can I come in, or am I going to ruin your late night arts and crafts project?
[ time shifts to an odd pace when she's gone, minutes stopping and starting with seemingly no discernible pattern. he doesn't know if he sleeps for hours or seconds, if he loses half a day or mere minutes to identifying every piece of inventory in his father's private facilities. his home feels empty without alina, all those little spaces he would find her tucked away in now abandoned and desolate, and when he can no longer take the sight of those hollow vacancies, he finds himself at dominik's grave in the middle of the night asking a headstone if he hates him, too. the urge to cry is unbearable, and yet his tears don't come, leaving him restless and brimming over with a pain that has nowhere to go.
he throws himself into work and yet he manages to send that sideways as well, a night of conversation with zoya ending in a quarrel by breakfast, his phone and a bottle of prosecco smashed to bits on the floor of his veranda. instead of cleaning it up, he uses his tablet to organize a friday-night party that he promptly forgets about until guests begin to arrive. even with the house packed with cheery bodies, it does little to fill the spaces he keeps looking towards, and eventually he exits altogether to focus on a physical representation of the jumble of thoughts in his head.
alina's quiet greeting startles him, at first thinking that his brain is finally turning on him to make him hallucinate the things he wants most, but she doesn't shimmer away the longer he looks at her, only becoming more clear as he takes in the little details he's missed — his coat around her narrow shoulders, her hair falling like strands of moonlight along her throat, her eyes devoid of the anger he's expecting for not speaking to her in days, for not telling her about this party, for not being present even when he hardly feels welcome or wanted. ]
Alina. [ it takes him a few moments to think beyond her name, and more moments after that to move, picking up the bottle of wine he was steadily demolishing on his own and snagging a fresh glass from the bar cart to pour and offer her a drink. ] You know I'm fond of bad etiquette. Here. This tastes much better than what's out there.
[ he tries not to think about the brush of her fingers — cold, and he could warm them in his own but shouldn't, so he pulls a hand through his hair instead, his blond locks uncombed and falling freely across his forehead. he swallows, setting the bottle down and taking a fortifying breath before he puts on a weary smile, somewhat dimmed but surprisingly genuine. ]
You're not ruining anything. I'm sorry I haven't reached out. [ he doesn't explain the crowded board but suspects it needs none anyway. ] I've been a bit disconnected lately. Zoya and I — well — we had an argument of which my phone was the main casualty. I haven't had it replaced. Honestly, I haven't spoken to anyone in days but — it's good to see you. Truly.
[ he pauses, pursing his lips as he listens to the muted strains of music beyond the secure walls of his study. his eyes flicker to hers, and then he crosses the distance once more to slip a hand into the pocket of his jacket, his smile growing sheepish when he pulls out his car keys. ]
I was hoping you'd bring these. Grand theft auto is painfully complicated.
[ she doesn't have the stomach for the first drop of wine on her tongue, full-bodied and fizzling and flooding her with memories of a moonlit porch and the heat of his fingers chasing away the chill on her skin. it's for the better to leave well enough alone, anyway; the shots mal had tipped to her mouth still burn in her throt, fueling her with just enough liquor courage to stand here in front of nikolai without flinching, without dissecting every weary line and chipper grin and wondering which belongs to his true face.
there's no need to worsen the pleasant buzz in her head, or lend nikolai the ammunition he needs to blame the wine for loosening her tongue into a jumbled mess of terrifying truths. wine sploshes dangerously when she sets aside her glass, a little more frazzled than she intended as she narrowly avoids spilling it across the dark, elegant wood of his desk. it would be just her luck to throw his study into chaos, a safe sanctuary she's ruined just by entering it, when she had only come to clean up the wreckage of what she's already destroyed.
the smile she shoots him is apologetic — for the unsteadiness of her fingers, for everything that's been left unsaid, for every wrong word that had tumbled out of her mouth. for finding some comfort in the fact he looks like death warmed over, most of all. the satisfied pang in her chest feels her feel like an abomination that needs to be put down, but — she can't look away from the evidence that maybe she had mattered, after all. that maybe she isn't entirely alone in her misery.
that maybe she has a chance to set this right. ]
I wouldn't have blamed you if you didn't want to see me again. [ her fingers smooth over the dark circles bruising beneath his eyes, brushing over the weary creasing in his forehead, though it does little to ease those tired lines away. it's no longer her place to ask if he's sleeping, to pull him down into the soft sheets of his bed when he wears himself into thin, fraying threads of a man — but the impulse is there, coming as naturally as the beating in her chest. ] But I missed you too much not to come.
[ her smile is flimsy, delicate and easy to break. she would deserve it, she thinks, if he decided to smash it against the floor. she can hear the icy rejection already: you're hard to miss, alina. not nikolai's voice, but the whisper of her own fear poisoning her ear. her hand falls away, the chilled points of her fingers curling around his own where they grip his keys. ]
You can have them back. I'll trade them to you if you tell me what happened with Zoya.
[ she suspects he won't like the price she's asking for in return, when it requires slipping off the mask he wears, comfortable in his chosen armor — but she isn't selfish enough to burden him with her own news so soon, much as she wants to question if it's her own steps forward that have torn open a rift between him and his best friend. ]
That might count as blackmail, but at least I'm being generous about it.
[ he realizes after one sip that she's toeing the line between tipsy and drunk, and he wants to ask if it's because she was actually having a good time at his party or because she's miserable, though he doesn't know which answer is worse, briefly closing his eyes at the cool touch of her fingers against his skin. he wants to lean into it, but then she's curling her grip around his and presenting him with a bargain that he already knows he's going to take. if he says no, she could leave. he does not want her to leave. ]
She's being stubborn. [ he leans against the solid weight of his desk, removing his keys from their shared grip but keeping their fingers lightly clasped, absently pressing their fingertips together, then flattening his hand so they're palm to palm. ] I told her she was going too far with Aleksander, that maybe she should pull out, and then she got angry, and then I got angry, and we argued over her nude pictures, of all things, and now she's not speaking to me. Or maybe she is. I don't know. Like I said, I don't have a phone right now.
[ he laces their fingers together, his chest falling around a soft sigh. he wants to pull her against him, to slot himself in the space between her neck and shoulder so he can hide away there, but he no longer feels worthy of it. he barely feels like he deserves to hold her hand. ]
I was going to see you again. Soon. When things felt less raw. [ with his free hand, he gently twirls a lock of her hair around one finger. ] I thought I was the only one missing you. How have you been, Starlight?
[ it gives her no satisfaction to have her worst fears confirmed: nikolai's plans dissolving in a cloud of smoke, aleksander's hold on zoya tightening like a noose, his fear for her safety now that he's seen the reality of what it means to gamble with aleksander. reminding him of every warning she had issued, every story she had shared to highlight aleksander's mercilessness, is only salt poured into a wound nikolai has inflicted on himself. her smile drops suddenly, fading into a mournful little line. ]
You both have a point, and you're both being stubborn. It doesn't have to be all or nothing, you know. Sometimes it only takes one person setting aside their pride to make something right. The word "compromise" exists for a reason.
[ the rapping of her fingers against his temple is half-hearted, too keenly aware that her advice is based in projection, brought to life by her own wishes while stumbling down that glittering boardwalk — expecting the silence that greeted her, but wanting so desperately to hear the thud of his footfalls behind her. ]
Just don't tell her you're worried about her. Zoya would tear off your own arms and beat you with them if she thought you were implying she can't take care of herself.
[ laying down the planks to repair his broken bridge with zoya is tragically, frustratingly easier than cobbling together the steps to mend their own. her eyes dart down to their linked fingers, swinging them lightly, in her selfish need to prolong this moment — to stall her confession as she chews on the corner of her lip, thoughtful. ]
What if I told you it would be the perfect time for Zoya to pull out? [ she visibly inhales, chest deflating with the slow breath she pushes out. ] Aleksander's board is calling on him to resign, and it's going to be messy.
[ he won't go bloodlessly. she's never doubted it for a moment, never believed they would choose a nobody like alina starkov to fill his space, no matter his mother's support. but it's a step — a step that matters, even if it leads to nowhere. or so she keeps trying to tell herself, as though it'll spare her from her outrage and disappointment if the risks she's taken amount to nothing.
she squeezes her fingers around his like a pulse — once, twice, to reassure herself he isn't a figment about to slip through her fingers like water. and, above all else, give her an anchor when she warns, ] There's too much to tell you, Nik. You should check the news. It's all there.
[ there's a certain irony in this, that she would be the one trying to mend this rift when she's also the one that warned him of the reckless consequences to come. an i told you so doesn't come despite how he deserves it. ]
She says I'm going soft. Losing my nerve. [ perhaps there is some truth to her accusations, but he isn't going to admit to it. coming to a compromise with zoya is like trying to put water back into a broken jar — impossible, frustrating, and painful. a part of him thinks they're too alike in different ways. neither of them can tolerate losing. ] I am worried for her, but I think a bigger part of me wants to do this another way.
[ his eyes lift, his brow creasing at what she says. for a moment he wants to ask her to explain, but something tells him not do, instead pulling his hand away from hers as he moves to circle around his desk, pulling in the chair as he sits and taps at his computer to bring it to life. a quick search brings up dozens of articles, all from the last twenty-four hours, all centered around alina's accusations against aleksander. it strikes him like a physical blow to know that she set the most hidden parts of herself to light without anyone by her side.
not anyone. she has mal, genya, others. just not him. and she doesn't need him, anyway — never has, because even when she couldn't see her own strength, he's always known it was there.
aleksander's mother lends the damning blow of credibility to her story. the backlash is monumental, both for alina and against, and as he sits back and rubs a hand over his mouth he doesn't know what wars more strongly in him — his pride for alina or his hatred for himself. he sits in silence for a long moment before he springs up, terrified by how the words i love you press against his tongue. ]
We should celebrate.
[ he skirts around again, his mouth blossoming into a smile while his heart rackets loudly in his chest, wrapping his arms around alina's waist and lifting her from the floor as he spins her in a circle. then he embraces her in earnest, pulling her close and pressing his face to her hair, a quiet laugh bubbling out of him that he can't quite contain. ]
This is why I adore you. You never cease to amaze me. [ he presses a loud kiss to her cheek, then pulls back, his hands on her shoulders. ] I'm so proud of you. So immensely proud. And you didn't even need me to do it. I may have conflated my usefulness here.
[ she waits for the car crash of his reaction, speeding toward inevitable disaster. it would be justified, after all of the scheming he's set his sights toward, all of the pieces he's aligned on a board, only for her to swipe them from the table and reset the game. for lack of anything to hold onto, her fingers wring together with excess nervous energy, if only to temper down her impulse to look away from the emotions that flicker across his expression.
but then a grin is splitting his mouth, and she doesn't have time to consider how his exhaustion melts away in an instant, how the light sparks back in his eyes like he's stolen the sun and placed it there, how she's forgotten what it felt like to soak in the rays of his joy. for a moment, it burns away the shadow hanging over them until there's only the melody of his laughter rustling through her hair and her answering squeak of surprise as she loops her arms around his neck, waiting until the room has stopped spinning to beam up at him. bright and unafraid, until she remembers why she came to find him in the first place. ]
I celebrated. [ kindly, she doesn't mention his suspiciously, half-empty wine bottle — or the question of whether he'd designed this party to celebrate his freedom from her. instead, she tucks rowdy strands behind her ear, and taps the nape of her neck — covered by a curtain of hair to obscure what's beneath from view. ] New tattoo.
[ a symbol she's going to feel stupid for stamping into her skin, if he turns her away at the end of this. she returns her clammy fingers to cup the back of his neck, holding him steady for the clumsy rise to her tiptoes to press of her mouth to his, a kiss that's uncertain and over too quickly. ]
For the longest time, I felt like I was sleepwalking. Until I met you. [ useful is reserved for paintbrushes and canvases and supplies without any mind of their own, that have no purpose until she's given them one, in her dictionary. nikolai has always been something more — a spark of hope in the darkness. ] You woke me up. You made my life worth fighting for again, so don't say I didn't need you.
I did. I always will. But when you look at me, you see ghosts. [ whether it's the spirit of dominik's grief, too similar to her own to go unseen, or the ghost of his hope for the future once it had been laid to rest alongside dominik. ] I needed to do this part without you. I don't know any other way to show you that you haven't ruined me.
[ she swallows thickly, hands reluctantly slipping away as she leans back to search his eyes. ]
If you're just going to tell me you don't want me anymore, let's pretend I didn't say anything at all.
[ for a brief, fleeting moment, everything feels right. alina is in his arms, a smile on her lips. they're close again, celebrating each other's victories in spite of it all. he wants to pluck this moment right out of the air and find a way to live in it, to prolong this happiness, to stay just as they are without having to think about anything that's happened before this or anything that will happen after.
but then she continues, making it impossible to ignore the elephant taking up all the air in the room. it's suddenly hard to breathe. he wishes the bottle was within reach because inching closer to it seems entirely inappropriate for the way that alina is looking at him as if she expects his attention to be undivided when his thoughts are going in a hundred directions at once. his lips burn with the simple, chaste kiss she offers him, his heartbeat faltering in his chest.
it's too familiar, what she describes. it's too much of how he feels as well, like everything was muted until alina came along and showed him more colors than he even thought existed. he wants to pull away but she beats him to it, and then all he wants to do is draw her back in. ]
I don't. [ he clears his throat, shaking his head. ] I don't not want you. But I think what's more important than me wanting you is that you have the chance to experience the things that I can't give you. Does that make sense?
[ he smiles again despite how his heart feels like it's crumbling in his chest once more, lifting a hand to brush his thumb along her bottom lip. then he takes off toward his desk again, turning his screen so he can skim through the articles, picking up the bottle with one hand. after a long swallow he asks — ] Am I allowed to see your new tattoo?
[ she barely registers the blur of his movements from the corner of her eye, courtesy of staring down the floor and willing the ground to open up beneath her. the solution had seemed so simple, laid out before her by mal's hands, but now — she nearly wishes his hope hadn't been so infectious. it makes bearing nikolai's rejection that much more humiliating, pinching her eyes closed against the sudden rush of heat to her face, and the splotchy flush that's overtaken her throat. ]
No, [ she says, quiet, until she clears her throat to make way for that unrelenting firmness. steel that won't be bent, no matter her wavering conviction. no matter how her fingers have paused in ripping herself open, suddenly too discouraged to finish the job, in the face of his calm, easy smiles and the doubt they've injected into her veins. like this is a pain he can recover from, if he continues going through the motions. ] No, it doesn't make sense. I don't want to experience anything if it isn't with you.
[ she takes one step to the side, leaning into the corner of his desk, in a vain attempt to catch his eyes. it's worse, somehow, that he's fled from her and fixed his gaze to the screen — as though she's as pitiful as she feels, coming all this way to prostrate herself only to be turned away. lowering herself to begging, a sight too pathetic for him to stand to be around. ]
Are you ever going to listen to what I've been trying to tell you, or are you going to trap yourself in your head again and assume you know everything I feel without hearing it from me yourself? I didn't come here to tell you about Aleksander, Nik. I came here to work things out. You might have stopped believing in us, but I haven't.
[ it's difficult to armor herself in anger, to even summon it to deflect from the hollow pit in her chest. it only rings empty with her defeat, anticipating the answer to that question before it arrives. ]
It isn't a good idea for you to see it. It just feels stupid now. [ and now she can't erase it. at the very least, she won't have to endure the sight of it every time she glimpses herself in the mirror. she laughs, watery and self-depreacting, and makes a move to pick up her flats by the door. ] You don't need another reason to think I'm pathetic. I should just go before I find a new way to make everything worse than it already is.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slaps more college au in here
despite it, nikolai's absence aches like a hole carved into her chest, hollow and oozing — that one missing shard she hasn't found a way to repair, its edges pricking her whenever she scrolls through the countless posts her feud with aleksander has stirred into a frenzy. together, she and nikolai had promised, but it's baghra's sour glare at her side in nearly every photograph splashed across the page of those rabid, frothing tabloids. baghra's name attached to her own in every article that comes forward to share alina starkov's story. baghra's connection to aleksander that lends credible weight to the allegations littered throughout, baghra's money that has kept him from wiping them from existence in the press, baghra's presence that makes it impossible to sweep every accusation out of view and back into aleksander's closet of skeletons.
skimming through public reactions is an exercise in self-torment. the unflattering angles are expected — feud between bitter exes over morozova corporation ownership: simple lover's spat or something more? — but the endearments are worse. sankta alina. sol koroleva. it's a gamble between which outlets intend it as praise, and those that have twisted her motives into ugly materialism and mocked her with it, but — at least nikolai can't ever punish himself for inviting the circus into her private bubble when she's welcomed them herself, can't look at her and see only dominik's spirit hovering above her when her reputation is of her own making now.
she tries to take what small comfort she can in that, and in the break mal's forced upon her, seizing her phone the moment it had buzzed with its newest notifications to prevent her morbid curiosity from committing the worst atrocity: skimming through the latest whispers and rumors splashed across her screen while tucked away in the corner of nikolai's home. it doesn't fend off the squinting stares that try to place her identity in the crowd of party-goers, though they aren't so different from her own raking through the mass of writhing bodies in her futile effort to find nikolai among them.
stumbling across his study is mostly luck, if not instinct — the natural path her feet have always taken whenever he's vanished from her sight, knowing the door would swing open to reveal him inside and hunched over a new project. the room she's always disappeared into herself, sketchbook in hand, to curl up on the couch and find her peaceful haven in the scrape of charcoal across a page.
she has to blink once, twice, to assure herself he isn't a memory produced by a desperate mind. her steps are quiet as she slips inside, the door softly clicking closed behind her, as she kicks the flats off of her feet. ]
Hi. [ gently spoken, like she doesn't want to disturb the peace of this room or his nimble fingers pinning string across a board. more than anything, it's an awkward greeting — winded and struck dumb, grasping for the right words. in his absence, she had forgotten how handsome he was, struck by it again — as if it's only her first time seeing him in the flesh. she takes another stride forward, shifting her weight from foot to foot, still lingering uneasily near the door. just in case he does decide to toss her out. ] I hear it's bad etiquette for hosts not to join their own parties.
[ she could wince with how stupid it sounds, fumbling and overly casual. feeling woefully underprepared for this, she fiddles nervously with the edge of her sleeve — his, in actuality, as she drowns in the navy suit jacket she'd repurposed over black tights and a short slip dress beneath. ]
I've been looking for you. [ there. that's more painfully honest. ] Can I come in, or am I going to ruin your late night arts and crafts project?
no subject
he throws himself into work and yet he manages to send that sideways as well, a night of conversation with zoya ending in a quarrel by breakfast, his phone and a bottle of prosecco smashed to bits on the floor of his veranda. instead of cleaning it up, he uses his tablet to organize a friday-night party that he promptly forgets about until guests begin to arrive. even with the house packed with cheery bodies, it does little to fill the spaces he keeps looking towards, and eventually he exits altogether to focus on a physical representation of the jumble of thoughts in his head.
alina's quiet greeting startles him, at first thinking that his brain is finally turning on him to make him hallucinate the things he wants most, but she doesn't shimmer away the longer he looks at her, only becoming more clear as he takes in the little details he's missed — his coat around her narrow shoulders, her hair falling like strands of moonlight along her throat, her eyes devoid of the anger he's expecting for not speaking to her in days, for not telling her about this party, for not being present even when he hardly feels welcome or wanted. ]
Alina. [ it takes him a few moments to think beyond her name, and more moments after that to move, picking up the bottle of wine he was steadily demolishing on his own and snagging a fresh glass from the bar cart to pour and offer her a drink. ] You know I'm fond of bad etiquette. Here. This tastes much better than what's out there.
[ he tries not to think about the brush of her fingers — cold, and he could warm them in his own but shouldn't, so he pulls a hand through his hair instead, his blond locks uncombed and falling freely across his forehead. he swallows, setting the bottle down and taking a fortifying breath before he puts on a weary smile, somewhat dimmed but surprisingly genuine. ]
You're not ruining anything. I'm sorry I haven't reached out. [ he doesn't explain the crowded board but suspects it needs none anyway. ] I've been a bit disconnected lately. Zoya and I — well — we had an argument of which my phone was the main casualty. I haven't had it replaced. Honestly, I haven't spoken to anyone in days but — it's good to see you. Truly.
[ he pauses, pursing his lips as he listens to the muted strains of music beyond the secure walls of his study. his eyes flicker to hers, and then he crosses the distance once more to slip a hand into the pocket of his jacket, his smile growing sheepish when he pulls out his car keys. ]
I was hoping you'd bring these. Grand theft auto is painfully complicated.
no subject
there's no need to worsen the pleasant buzz in her head, or lend nikolai the ammunition he needs to blame the wine for loosening her tongue into a jumbled mess of terrifying truths. wine sploshes dangerously when she sets aside her glass, a little more frazzled than she intended as she narrowly avoids spilling it across the dark, elegant wood of his desk. it would be just her luck to throw his study into chaos, a safe sanctuary she's ruined just by entering it, when she had only come to clean up the wreckage of what she's already destroyed.
the smile she shoots him is apologetic — for the unsteadiness of her fingers, for everything that's been left unsaid, for every wrong word that had tumbled out of her mouth. for finding some comfort in the fact he looks like death warmed over, most of all. the satisfied pang in her chest feels her feel like an abomination that needs to be put down, but — she can't look away from the evidence that maybe she had mattered, after all. that maybe she isn't entirely alone in her misery.
that maybe she has a chance to set this right. ]
I wouldn't have blamed you if you didn't want to see me again. [ her fingers smooth over the dark circles bruising beneath his eyes, brushing over the weary creasing in his forehead, though it does little to ease those tired lines away. it's no longer her place to ask if he's sleeping, to pull him down into the soft sheets of his bed when he wears himself into thin, fraying threads of a man — but the impulse is there, coming as naturally as the beating in her chest. ] But I missed you too much not to come.
[ her smile is flimsy, delicate and easy to break. she would deserve it, she thinks, if he decided to smash it against the floor. she can hear the icy rejection already: you're hard to miss, alina. not nikolai's voice, but the whisper of her own fear poisoning her ear. her hand falls away, the chilled points of her fingers curling around his own where they grip his keys. ]
You can have them back. I'll trade them to you if you tell me what happened with Zoya.
[ she suspects he won't like the price she's asking for in return, when it requires slipping off the mask he wears, comfortable in his chosen armor — but she isn't selfish enough to burden him with her own news so soon, much as she wants to question if it's her own steps forward that have torn open a rift between him and his best friend. ]
That might count as blackmail, but at least I'm being generous about it.
no subject
She's being stubborn. [ he leans against the solid weight of his desk, removing his keys from their shared grip but keeping their fingers lightly clasped, absently pressing their fingertips together, then flattening his hand so they're palm to palm. ] I told her she was going too far with Aleksander, that maybe she should pull out, and then she got angry, and then I got angry, and we argued over her nude pictures, of all things, and now she's not speaking to me. Or maybe she is. I don't know. Like I said, I don't have a phone right now.
[ he laces their fingers together, his chest falling around a soft sigh. he wants to pull her against him, to slot himself in the space between her neck and shoulder so he can hide away there, but he no longer feels worthy of it. he barely feels like he deserves to hold her hand. ]
I was going to see you again. Soon. When things felt less raw. [ with his free hand, he gently twirls a lock of her hair around one finger. ] I thought I was the only one missing you. How have you been, Starlight?
no subject
You both have a point, and you're both being stubborn. It doesn't have to be all or nothing, you know. Sometimes it only takes one person setting aside their pride to make something right. The word "compromise" exists for a reason.
[ the rapping of her fingers against his temple is half-hearted, too keenly aware that her advice is based in projection, brought to life by her own wishes while stumbling down that glittering boardwalk — expecting the silence that greeted her, but wanting so desperately to hear the thud of his footfalls behind her. ]
Just don't tell her you're worried about her. Zoya would tear off your own arms and beat you with them if she thought you were implying she can't take care of herself.
[ laying down the planks to repair his broken bridge with zoya is tragically, frustratingly easier than cobbling together the steps to mend their own. her eyes dart down to their linked fingers, swinging them lightly, in her selfish need to prolong this moment — to stall her confession as she chews on the corner of her lip, thoughtful. ]
What if I told you it would be the perfect time for Zoya to pull out? [ she visibly inhales, chest deflating with the slow breath she pushes out. ] Aleksander's board is calling on him to resign, and it's going to be messy.
[ he won't go bloodlessly. she's never doubted it for a moment, never believed they would choose a nobody like alina starkov to fill his space, no matter his mother's support. but it's a step — a step that matters, even if it leads to nowhere. or so she keeps trying to tell herself, as though it'll spare her from her outrage and disappointment if the risks she's taken amount to nothing.
she squeezes her fingers around his like a pulse — once, twice, to reassure herself he isn't a figment about to slip through her fingers like water. and, above all else, give her an anchor when she warns, ] There's too much to tell you, Nik. You should check the news. It's all there.
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She says I'm going soft. Losing my nerve. [ perhaps there is some truth to her accusations, but he isn't going to admit to it. coming to a compromise with zoya is like trying to put water back into a broken jar — impossible, frustrating, and painful. a part of him thinks they're too alike in different ways. neither of them can tolerate losing. ] I am worried for her, but I think a bigger part of me wants to do this another way.
[ his eyes lift, his brow creasing at what she says. for a moment he wants to ask her to explain, but something tells him not do, instead pulling his hand away from hers as he moves to circle around his desk, pulling in the chair as he sits and taps at his computer to bring it to life. a quick search brings up dozens of articles, all from the last twenty-four hours, all centered around alina's accusations against aleksander. it strikes him like a physical blow to know that she set the most hidden parts of herself to light without anyone by her side.
not anyone. she has mal, genya, others. just not him. and she doesn't need him, anyway — never has, because even when she couldn't see her own strength, he's always known it was there.
aleksander's mother lends the damning blow of credibility to her story. the backlash is monumental, both for alina and against, and as he sits back and rubs a hand over his mouth he doesn't know what wars more strongly in him — his pride for alina or his hatred for himself. he sits in silence for a long moment before he springs up, terrified by how the words i love you press against his tongue. ]
We should celebrate.
[ he skirts around again, his mouth blossoming into a smile while his heart rackets loudly in his chest, wrapping his arms around alina's waist and lifting her from the floor as he spins her in a circle. then he embraces her in earnest, pulling her close and pressing his face to her hair, a quiet laugh bubbling out of him that he can't quite contain. ]
This is why I adore you. You never cease to amaze me. [ he presses a loud kiss to her cheek, then pulls back, his hands on her shoulders. ] I'm so proud of you. So immensely proud. And you didn't even need me to do it. I may have conflated my usefulness here.
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but then a grin is splitting his mouth, and she doesn't have time to consider how his exhaustion melts away in an instant, how the light sparks back in his eyes like he's stolen the sun and placed it there, how she's forgotten what it felt like to soak in the rays of his joy. for a moment, it burns away the shadow hanging over them until there's only the melody of his laughter rustling through her hair and her answering squeak of surprise as she loops her arms around his neck, waiting until the room has stopped spinning to beam up at him. bright and unafraid, until she remembers why she came to find him in the first place. ]
I celebrated. [ kindly, she doesn't mention his suspiciously, half-empty wine bottle — or the question of whether he'd designed this party to celebrate his freedom from her. instead, she tucks rowdy strands behind her ear, and taps the nape of her neck — covered by a curtain of hair to obscure what's beneath from view. ] New tattoo.
[ a symbol she's going to feel stupid for stamping into her skin, if he turns her away at the end of this. she returns her clammy fingers to cup the back of his neck, holding him steady for the clumsy rise to her tiptoes to press of her mouth to his, a kiss that's uncertain and over too quickly. ]
For the longest time, I felt like I was sleepwalking. Until I met you. [ useful is reserved for paintbrushes and canvases and supplies without any mind of their own, that have no purpose until she's given them one, in her dictionary. nikolai has always been something more — a spark of hope in the darkness. ] You woke me up. You made my life worth fighting for again, so don't say I didn't need you.
I did. I always will. But when you look at me, you see ghosts. [ whether it's the spirit of dominik's grief, too similar to her own to go unseen, or the ghost of his hope for the future once it had been laid to rest alongside dominik. ] I needed to do this part without you. I don't know any other way to show you that you haven't ruined me.
[ she swallows thickly, hands reluctantly slipping away as she leans back to search his eyes. ]
If you're just going to tell me you don't want me anymore, let's pretend I didn't say anything at all.
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but then she continues, making it impossible to ignore the elephant taking up all the air in the room. it's suddenly hard to breathe. he wishes the bottle was within reach because inching closer to it seems entirely inappropriate for the way that alina is looking at him as if she expects his attention to be undivided when his thoughts are going in a hundred directions at once. his lips burn with the simple, chaste kiss she offers him, his heartbeat faltering in his chest.
it's too familiar, what she describes. it's too much of how he feels as well, like everything was muted until alina came along and showed him more colors than he even thought existed. he wants to pull away but she beats him to it, and then all he wants to do is draw her back in. ]
I don't. [ he clears his throat, shaking his head. ] I don't not want you. But I think what's more important than me wanting you is that you have the chance to experience the things that I can't give you. Does that make sense?
[ he smiles again despite how his heart feels like it's crumbling in his chest once more, lifting a hand to brush his thumb along her bottom lip. then he takes off toward his desk again, turning his screen so he can skim through the articles, picking up the bottle with one hand. after a long swallow he asks — ] Am I allowed to see your new tattoo?
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No, [ she says, quiet, until she clears her throat to make way for that unrelenting firmness. steel that won't be bent, no matter her wavering conviction. no matter how her fingers have paused in ripping herself open, suddenly too discouraged to finish the job, in the face of his calm, easy smiles and the doubt they've injected into her veins. like this is a pain he can recover from, if he continues going through the motions. ] No, it doesn't make sense. I don't want to experience anything if it isn't with you.
[ she takes one step to the side, leaning into the corner of his desk, in a vain attempt to catch his eyes. it's worse, somehow, that he's fled from her and fixed his gaze to the screen — as though she's as pitiful as she feels, coming all this way to prostrate herself only to be turned away. lowering herself to begging, a sight too pathetic for him to stand to be around. ]
Are you ever going to listen to what I've been trying to tell you, or are you going to trap yourself in your head again and assume you know everything I feel without hearing it from me yourself? I didn't come here to tell you about Aleksander, Nik. I came here to work things out. You might have stopped believing in us, but I haven't.
[ it's difficult to armor herself in anger, to even summon it to deflect from the hollow pit in her chest. it only rings empty with her defeat, anticipating the answer to that question before it arrives. ]
It isn't a good idea for you to see it. It just feels stupid now. [ and now she can't erase it. at the very least, she won't have to endure the sight of it every time she glimpses herself in the mirror. she laughs, watery and self-depreacting, and makes a move to pick up her flats by the door. ] You don't need another reason to think I'm pathetic. I should just go before I find a new way to make everything worse than it already is.