"Mm," she hedges, allowing him to catch her hand all the same. She draws nearer to him, turning his hand over in turn to study them. The rough callouses that suit a privateer and not a prince. He may have idolized Prince Vasily, but she knows he wouldn't have been able to say the same.
It is an attractive proposal all its own. She won't tell him this. It would give him a power over her that she doesn't want anyone to have, anymore. But if this is what some other Alina had signed up for, then maybe she was starting to see how, and why.
"You're not the first powerful man to tell me we could change the world together." This is a warning of her skepticism, the same skepticism that makes her wonder, privately, what becomes of a political alliance when it no longer has a cause. She wants to trust him, but when Aleksander is dead, what then?
"To fix Ravka together," has the cadence of a correction, gentle as his fingers go loose in her grasp. Yielding to this inspection, content with the contact it brings with it.
Change the world? It would be a lie to say Nikolai doesn't have some appetite for it. But Ravka—
There is no greater calling than Ravka, the grasping, drowning, fractured wreck of a country. He has served her since he was twelve.
"There is so much that is broken in our country," he says, quieter, looking at their hands. "I have been seeking ways to repair it since I was a boy."
And now, after all his roundabouts and sideways approaches, he has been saddled with the power to address all these problems plaguing Ravka directly. It is overwhelming. He had stumbled over that, when he'd tried to express that to her, straying into her rooms just to see her turn towards him with a smile and ward off that sense of isolation.
"Alina Starkov," is very fond, his eyes lifting from their hands. "I would be so...incredibly alone in this task if it weren't for you."
She recalls finding Aleksander in his war room, late in the night. The way the shadows had crawled from the corners of the room as he admitted his own failings, his own sense of powerlessness at not being able to turn the tides of the war and fix this country. How her hand had slipped into his not unlike the way she holds Nikolai's hand now, how she had reassured him against the tide of his loneliness.
She wants, desperately, to believe that this is different. That Nikolai will not use her as a tool to make the country that he wants. That he wants her, and does not merely want to control her power.
Because he's right, of course. He is terribly alone. She can see it in what he's said already. The loss of his father, his brother, worthless as they were, has assured that. And his mother has always been a vain idiot more than a ruler, sitting by while Pyotr and Vasily let the country dissemble into something weak and atrophied.
She squeezes his hand, reaffirming for him as she had for Aleksander before, "You're not alone."
She is, though. She can see it now. The long life of a grisha, especially one with her power, made more powerful still by the amplifiers she will need to destroy the Fold and Aleksander, to ensure that she is really alone, utterly. It is several lifetimes away, and she still can't help but wonder how the people will look at her when the last otkazat'sya king is in his grave and she still sits in the Grand Palace, alone.
But she smiles at Nikolai. A fluttering thing, determined to comfort the boy who just wants to fill the role given to him. She had fallen down on her job of protecting him when she'd fallen asleep; at least she can do a better job of it now, here.
"But we can't fix it from here." So all of this is very far off. She draws a deep breath, shuttering away those dark feelings, those doubts. "One thing at a time."
On the table behind them, his porridge must have cooled completely by now. Alina is steadier; the fear has left her voice. Nikolai reels her a step closer, off hand lifting to tuck a stray wisp of hair back behind her ear.
"One thing at a time," he agrees, though Nikolai's perception of one thing is liable to stretch to include all of what happens around them within this boarding house, the village, the woods and the void and the Duchess in her castle. All pieces to draw together to bring them closer to their return home.
There are things he could say here. They catch at the back of his throat, sentiments so close to hand that it would take no thought at all to simply tell her.
Instead, he turns the link of their hands so that he might put a soft kiss to her knuckles. A wordless, stall of a gesture, meant to stand in for things unsaid while Nikolai tells her, "I'll make you a proper proposal. I can owe it to you, along with all the rest I've promised. You might collect on those while I prepare."
A number of promises, as yet unfulfilled. As light as his tone is, the offer is no less sincere for it.
"You're accruing quite the debt," she remarks, unable to stop herself from smiling when his lips brush her hand. There is something gentle about it. A kind of gentleness that she had not seen enough of in her life, and a kind that she wants to believe isn't entirely out of reach.
It does its job, fishing her out of the depths of her own self-pity and pessimism regarding Aleksander's plans and reach. These things are set aside in acknowledgment of the more immediate, pressing issue — their mutual confinement.
She takes her hand back reluctantly, looking past him to the table with a sigh. "I ruined your breakfast."
So the porridge is cold, and she made off with the cheese and toast. He had enough to break his fast; if he is hungry again in a few hours, he will square with it then.
For the moment, he must relinquish his grip on her hand. Return her smile, with one hand lifting to his heart. Quite the debt indeed. A relatively small stack of favors, when set against what he already intends to give over to her.
"Can I beg your company while I clear the dishes?" is just a stopgap measure against their parting of ways.
He has put certain aspects of their acquaintance into her hands. Given Alina the excuses and power with which to fall back into each other, made clear to her his own willingness. The choice of it, he gives to her, to do with what she will.
But even now, exhaustion held so carefully in check, Nikolai would be content to simply lay down alongside her to sleep properly, make a re-attempt at the most benign of what they attempted last night.
She watches him with a little tilt of her head, like some part of her is slotting the scene into place. The quiet intimacy of seeing him this way, and deciding whether or not she could make a habit of it. A long habit of it.
"You haven't slept," she says when she gathers herself out of that reverie. She'd thought he had when she casually stole from his plate and readied herself to occupy him. But he is still coming clean off the heals of a trauma so unpleasant that he'd seen fit to shield her from it.
She maneuvers past him, taking up the bread plate and the half-stirred porridge and insisting, "Let me take care of these."
This morning, as feeling had come slowly back to his body and he had tipped from the pedestal, Nikolai had put the entirety of that experience behind a sheet of glass. There is distance between himself and that loss of control, those long hours frozen alone in the darkened hall. Slumped over in the banya, he had examined each moment as if from a great distance, detached from the way his body had reacted in the moment.
Maybe it will come back to him in sleep. It can join the nightmares he’s had since he acquired the wound on his chest.
“I’d rather have your company,” he tells her, frank, even as his smile widens. “Let me halve the work.”
The King of Ravka and the Sun Summoner, tending to leftover bread and porridge. Not quite the illustrious tales one might imagine.
This, too, draws a reluctant smile out of her. Alina makes room for him at her side as she clears the dishes off, handing one then the other towards him at the sink.
She should argue more. Offer to come back to them later, once he's asleep, and offer her company in the pursuit of a more worthy task like getting him there. But she too is reluctant to separate from him, for the company makes it easier to stave off the little fragments of misery.
Maybe, so long as they occupy the same space, all other things can be kept at bay.
Maybe he simply wants to be near her. That isn't new, not really. It is only made new when placed in this context, what they have been through together, what they are resolving to do together.
As they set aside the last place, Nikolai catches her hand, his own still damp from the water. Runs his thumb across her knuckles, remembering putting a ring there. It had been heavy, maybe more so for her, a tangible symbol of what they were embarking on together. He doesn't have any equivalent here to offer.
"Since I've already accrued a fair amount of debt, would you grant me one more favor?"
He'd kept her off the Duchess' pedestal and table. The answer seems obvious. Despite Nikolai's insistence that he is the one indebted to her, Alina can't help feeling like it's very much the other way around — even as the favors he asks include marriage and don't just save my country, but also fix it.
She hesitates, though, looking down at their hands.
"I'll consider it," she hedges. The hint of her smile doesn't quite tug the corners of her mouth, stays privately in her eyes and the little quirk of one eyebrow.
Despite begging permission for the request, Nikolai finds himself uncertain as to how to ask it.
The light stroke of his thumb, back and forth across her knuckles, holds his attention for a moment. His gaze lifts back to her face, that minor flex of tension in his expression easing at the traces of amusement he finds there.
"Walk me back to my room? We can start at the front door, if you're still set on playing the gentleman."
"Shall I sweep you gallantly into my arms?" She crinkles her nose, surrendering a little laugh. Alina releases his hand, then, but only to step nearer to him, to loop her arm through his. "I had already planned on it."
But it's good that he asked, isn't it? She hazards a sideways glance up at him. Her life has been full of unspoken things, little secrets she hadn't admitted to Mal, big secrets that Aleksander and Genya had withheld. It is only Nikolai who has been entirely honest in it all, forthright.
It’s a short walk up to the room Nikolai had claimed, door ajar and shutters thrown open. All as he had left it before he had descended in search of food. The evenings clothing discarded at the foot of the bed, precisely folded. Boots set just inside the door. He’s been here such a short time; there is little else to distinguish the space as his own.
Pausing at the threshold, he turns in to Alina. Reluctant still to part from her, his acknowledgment of their arrival goes as far as nudging the door fully open. Turning his gaze back to her.
“I’m trying to think of an excuse to keep you,” he admits, unabashed. “If we take another turn around the boarding house I’m sure I’ll hit upon one.”
Alina is surprised when he stops in the doorway. His body blocks her chance at getting a look at how he's settling in, what fills the space of his room (and who else does). She comes up short, drawing her hand out of his arm with a little hint of surprise in her expression.
It softens into some kind of fond incredulity at his admission.
"You could start by not drawing attention to every opening I have to leave." The smile is there more solidly now, bemused if a little troubled. It reminds her of Dwight in a way—the anxiety without all the rambling. But she can see it threaded there in him. The sense that he's waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Only then does it occur to her that it's not that Nikolai Lantsov is an anxious person, but that she in particular makes him nervous. Not the kind of nervous that comes with being intimidated, but the earnest kind that seeks approval. The same way she had felt nervous around Aleksander.
His grin widens, stepping in and to the side, a brief sweep of his hand encompassing the entire space, the bed he’d claimed.
“Come in.”
Has there been something he auspicious about how she’d invited herself in the night of his arrival? If Nikolai believed in signs, that might have been one. As it is, he closes the door behind them.
He’d done the same for Genya, warding against prying eyes and sharp ears. It’s an old habit; Ravkan court had demanded discretion as a rule.
The closing of the door draws her eye over her shoulder. It's a comfort, in a way. She hadn't felt ready to return to her own room, now that the boots and the kefta both feel different, the space less safe, knowing who had put her there. Here, however, she isn't alone with her pencil and her thoughts, and the door feels like a shield from the troubles that plagued them the night before.
"You don't have to entertain me," she tells him, eyes sliding towards the bed. "You can sleep. I'll stay until you do."
And then what? She's not sure just yet, but she will find something to occupy her and keep her from needing to go confront her unease about her own quarters. Maybe she'd reach out to Genya about the apartment over the tailor's shop after all. It felt like a good time for it.
In which you is the operative word, shifting the meaning of the statement.
Nikolai is talented, more than capable of keeping a room of people engaged. Does he enjoy that? Sometimes. Somewhat. It is always a duty, with specific objectives that demand success.
But that simply isn’t a factor with Alina.
Crossing to the bed, Nikolai tugs the laces of his tunic loose, toes off his boots. Sits on the edge of the bed before inviting, “Would you sit? I think I can do a better job of making comfortable today than I managed yesterday.”
She gave so many little pieces of herself to Aleksander. Things she would never be able to do without remembering that she had done them with him, first. Yet they'd never laid beside one another, had they?
It's a silly thing to think now because it's not like she is planning to tangle herself in Nikolai, not when there is no paralytic holding him back, not when she is still shaky from the earlier realization. (Or maybe she needs to reaffirm this for herself because otherwise she might.) And she and Genya slept beside each other for more than a month before Alina had finally skulked over to Nile's bed, ashamed of being rejected.
But it's different. It feels different because Nikolai had not rejected her. And when he loosens his tunic and takes off his boot, she remembers that she knows what is under these and the rest of his clothes. And this is the closest she has ever been to someone, really, except for those moments lying next to Mal in the meadow when she had told herself that they would lay like that forever.
"Of course," she hears herself saying. She moves to join him on the bed, sits a little awkwardly beside him. Wets her lips, waiting for him to make himself comfortable, to lie down that she might, in fact, lie beside him.
In that miserable art gallery, Alina had made him a promise. He has to trust that, rather than second guessing her endlessly.
He makes short work of settling, stretching out on the far side of the bed against the wall. Letting arm fall across the mattress, leaving most of the pillow to her. The beds are narrow, but they’ll serve well enough for their purposes. Nikolai isn’t dismayed at the prospect of being close to her.
“Make yourself at home,” is teasing, the warmth of the invitation softened by it.
When she'd first crawled into bed beside Genya, they'd already had the familiarity and closeness that girls cultivated with one another, and it lacked any whiff of sexual intimacy (at the time).
Not so with Nikolai. When he sprawls out, Alina's mind projects a solicitation to it that makes her flush. There is no way around the intimacy of it. She turns her face from him to hide the reaction, and there's not enough room to lie flat anyway, so she puts her back to him, carefully drawing her hair over her shoulder and out of his face.
She is careful not to touch him. As if she had not laid against his nakedness the night before. Then she tells herself that she is being too awkward about it all and does, in fact, scoot back towards him, to where she can feel the heat of his body and the folds of his clothes against her.
Throughout the process, Nikolai is quiet. Waiting for Alina to settle, come to a kind of rest, make up her mind as to what the arrangement of their bodies will be while she is in his bed.
“I do,” is quiet too, a murmur of an answer as he carefully drapes an arm across her waist. “Is this alright?”
He had spent what felt like hours wanting to put his arms around her last night. An eternity more as she slept leaning against him.
If the memory of it twists in his chest, raises up some clench of anxiety in him, it is curtailed before it can gain any kind of momentum.
She can feel his breath against the back of her neck. It prickles the hairs on her arms, making her keenly aware of every inch of them that is pressed together. It will be a miracle if he can fall asleep like this. She knows she won't.
"Yeah." There's a scratchy quality to her voice that she barely recognizes. She settles closer against him, then, seeking out more of the warmth. With one arm tucked under the pillow, she moves her other on top of his, welcoming a more solid embrace.
Her breaths feel bigger, louder, with him so close. Can he tell that she's nervous? Can he hear her heart, like she can?
A murmur against her nape, as his hand cinches tighter around her waist under the slight pressure of her hand.
"Breathe," is meant to be calming, steady the rasp of her breath. They are so close, and even if he couldn't hear, he could feel the rise and fall of her chest beneath his arm. "Nothing will happen here that you don't want. We can sleep, and you can leave whenever you wish."
She is on the outside of the bed, easy enough to swing her feet down to the ground and pull away from him. What he wants is for her to feel safe. Maybe for her to decide, to choose and to be able to give her what she wishes.
The press of her back against his chest brushes fabric against the burns. But even without that reminder, Nikolai wouldn;t be thinking of anything else but Alina, her hand braced on his chest, the look on her face as she'd studied the wax on his skin.
It would be foolish and complicated to explain her nervousness. Not only would it give him a weapon, a way in which he could identify her inexperience and therefore twist it in some way if he saw the need (why would he? This is Nikolai, not Aleksander, and yet--), but it would also be silly and embarrassing.
What kind of person is afraid of a good thing? The giddy excitement shouldn't nauseate her like it does.
Some of the tension melts from her shoulder when he squeezes her closer. It's that little affirmation, more than his words, which seem to keenly anchor her in the moment instead of the abstracted anxieties that preoccupy her. She shuts her eyes, focuses on his voice.
"I'm here to comfort you," she reminds him, as she had in the castle. A task she keeps failing at because her own burdens have a way of sucking the oxygen out of the room. But there's a lilt of humor in these words. Like she knows how silly it is that they keep failing that.
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It is an attractive proposal all its own. She won't tell him this. It would give him a power over her that she doesn't want anyone to have, anymore. But if this is what some other Alina had signed up for, then maybe she was starting to see how, and why.
"You're not the first powerful man to tell me we could change the world together." This is a warning of her skepticism, the same skepticism that makes her wonder, privately, what becomes of a political alliance when it no longer has a cause. She wants to trust him, but when Aleksander is dead, what then?
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Change the world? It would be a lie to say Nikolai doesn't have some appetite for it. But Ravka—
There is no greater calling than Ravka, the grasping, drowning, fractured wreck of a country. He has served her since he was twelve.
"There is so much that is broken in our country," he says, quieter, looking at their hands. "I have been seeking ways to repair it since I was a boy."
And now, after all his roundabouts and sideways approaches, he has been saddled with the power to address all these problems plaguing Ravka directly. It is overwhelming. He had stumbled over that, when he'd tried to express that to her, straying into her rooms just to see her turn towards him with a smile and ward off that sense of isolation.
"Alina Starkov," is very fond, his eyes lifting from their hands. "I would be so...incredibly alone in this task if it weren't for you."
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She wants, desperately, to believe that this is different. That Nikolai will not use her as a tool to make the country that he wants. That he wants her, and does not merely want to control her power.
Because he's right, of course. He is terribly alone. She can see it in what he's said already. The loss of his father, his brother, worthless as they were, has assured that. And his mother has always been a vain idiot more than a ruler, sitting by while Pyotr and Vasily let the country dissemble into something weak and atrophied.
She squeezes his hand, reaffirming for him as she had for Aleksander before, "You're not alone."
She is, though. She can see it now. The long life of a grisha, especially one with her power, made more powerful still by the amplifiers she will need to destroy the Fold and Aleksander, to ensure that she is really alone, utterly. It is several lifetimes away, and she still can't help but wonder how the people will look at her when the last otkazat'sya king is in his grave and she still sits in the Grand Palace, alone.
But she smiles at Nikolai. A fluttering thing, determined to comfort the boy who just wants to fill the role given to him. She had fallen down on her job of protecting him when she'd fallen asleep; at least she can do a better job of it now, here.
"But we can't fix it from here." So all of this is very far off. She draws a deep breath, shuttering away those dark feelings, those doubts. "One thing at a time."
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"One thing at a time," he agrees, though Nikolai's perception of one thing is liable to stretch to include all of what happens around them within this boarding house, the village, the woods and the void and the Duchess in her castle. All pieces to draw together to bring them closer to their return home.
There are things he could say here. They catch at the back of his throat, sentiments so close to hand that it would take no thought at all to simply tell her.
Instead, he turns the link of their hands so that he might put a soft kiss to her knuckles. A wordless, stall of a gesture, meant to stand in for things unsaid while Nikolai tells her, "I'll make you a proper proposal. I can owe it to you, along with all the rest I've promised. You might collect on those while I prepare."
A number of promises, as yet unfulfilled. As light as his tone is, the offer is no less sincere for it.
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It does its job, fishing her out of the depths of her own self-pity and pessimism regarding Aleksander's plans and reach. These things are set aside in acknowledgment of the more immediate, pressing issue — their mutual confinement.
She takes her hand back reluctantly, looking past him to the table with a sigh. "I ruined your breakfast."
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So the porridge is cold, and she made off with the cheese and toast. He had enough to break his fast; if he is hungry again in a few hours, he will square with it then.
For the moment, he must relinquish his grip on her hand. Return her smile, with one hand lifting to his heart. Quite the debt indeed. A relatively small stack of favors, when set against what he already intends to give over to her.
"Can I beg your company while I clear the dishes?" is just a stopgap measure against their parting of ways.
He has put certain aspects of their acquaintance into her hands. Given Alina the excuses and power with which to fall back into each other, made clear to her his own willingness. The choice of it, he gives to her, to do with what she will.
But even now, exhaustion held so carefully in check, Nikolai would be content to simply lay down alongside her to sleep properly, make a re-attempt at the most benign of what they attempted last night.
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"You haven't slept," she says when she gathers herself out of that reverie. She'd thought he had when she casually stole from his plate and readied herself to occupy him. But he is still coming clean off the heals of a trauma so unpleasant that he'd seen fit to shield her from it.
She maneuvers past him, taking up the bread plate and the half-stirred porridge and insisting, "Let me take care of these."
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Maybe it will come back to him in sleep. It can join the nightmares he’s had since he acquired the wound on his chest.
“I’d rather have your company,” he tells her, frank, even as his smile widens. “Let me halve the work.”
The King of Ravka and the Sun Summoner, tending to leftover bread and porridge. Not quite the illustrious tales one might imagine.
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She should argue more. Offer to come back to them later, once he's asleep, and offer her company in the pursuit of a more worthy task like getting him there. But she too is reluctant to separate from him, for the company makes it easier to stave off the little fragments of misery.
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Maybe he simply wants to be near her. That isn't new, not really. It is only made new when placed in this context, what they have been through together, what they are resolving to do together.
As they set aside the last place, Nikolai catches her hand, his own still damp from the water. Runs his thumb across her knuckles, remembering putting a ring there. It had been heavy, maybe more so for her, a tangible symbol of what they were embarking on together. He doesn't have any equivalent here to offer.
"Since I've already accrued a fair amount of debt, would you grant me one more favor?"
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She hesitates, though, looking down at their hands.
"I'll consider it," she hedges. The hint of her smile doesn't quite tug the corners of her mouth, stays privately in her eyes and the little quirk of one eyebrow.
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The light stroke of his thumb, back and forth across her knuckles, holds his attention for a moment. His gaze lifts back to her face, that minor flex of tension in his expression easing at the traces of amusement he finds there.
"Walk me back to my room? We can start at the front door, if you're still set on playing the gentleman."
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But it's good that he asked, isn't it? She hazards a sideways glance up at him. Her life has been full of unspoken things, little secrets she hadn't admitted to Mal, big secrets that Aleksander and Genya had withheld. It is only Nikolai who has been entirely honest in it all, forthright.
Honestly, it terrifies her.
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Pausing at the threshold, he turns in to Alina. Reluctant still to part from her, his acknowledgment of their arrival goes as far as nudging the door fully open. Turning his gaze back to her.
“I’m trying to think of an excuse to keep you,” he admits, unabashed. “If we take another turn around the boarding house I’m sure I’ll hit upon one.”
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It softens into some kind of fond incredulity at his admission.
"You could start by not drawing attention to every opening I have to leave." The smile is there more solidly now, bemused if a little troubled. It reminds her of Dwight in a way—the anxiety without all the rambling. But she can see it threaded there in him. The sense that he's waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Only then does it occur to her that it's not that Nikolai Lantsov is an anxious person, but that she in particular makes him nervous. Not the kind of nervous that comes with being intimidated, but the earnest kind that seeks approval. The same way she had felt nervous around Aleksander.
"Or inviting me in."
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His grin widens, stepping in and to the side, a brief sweep of his hand encompassing the entire space, the bed he’d claimed.
“Come in.”
Has there been something he auspicious about how she’d invited herself in the night of his arrival? If Nikolai believed in signs, that might have been one. As it is, he closes the door behind them.
He’d done the same for Genya, warding against prying eyes and sharp ears. It’s an old habit; Ravkan court had demanded discretion as a rule.
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"You don't have to entertain me," she tells him, eyes sliding towards the bed. "You can sleep. I'll stay until you do."
And then what? She's not sure just yet, but she will find something to occupy her and keep her from needing to go confront her unease about her own quarters. Maybe she'd reach out to Genya about the apartment over the tailor's shop after all. It felt like a good time for it.
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In which you is the operative word, shifting the meaning of the statement.
Nikolai is talented, more than capable of keeping a room of people engaged. Does he enjoy that? Sometimes. Somewhat. It is always a duty, with specific objectives that demand success.
But that simply isn’t a factor with Alina.
Crossing to the bed, Nikolai tugs the laces of his tunic loose, toes off his boots. Sits on the edge of the bed before inviting, “Would you sit? I think I can do a better job of making comfortable today than I managed yesterday.”
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It's a silly thing to think now because it's not like she is planning to tangle herself in Nikolai, not when there is no paralytic holding him back, not when she is still shaky from the earlier realization. (Or maybe she needs to reaffirm this for herself because otherwise she might.) And she and Genya slept beside each other for more than a month before Alina had finally skulked over to Nile's bed, ashamed of being rejected.
But it's different. It feels different because Nikolai had not rejected her. And when he loosens his tunic and takes off his boot, she remembers that she knows what is under these and the rest of his clothes. And this is the closest she has ever been to someone, really, except for those moments lying next to Mal in the meadow when she had told herself that they would lay like that forever.
"Of course," she hears herself saying. She moves to join him on the bed, sits a little awkwardly beside him. Wets her lips, waiting for him to make himself comfortable, to lie down that she might, in fact, lie beside him.
no subject
He makes short work of settling, stretching out on the far side of the bed against the wall. Letting arm fall across the mattress, leaving most of the pillow to her. The beds are narrow, but they’ll serve well enough for their purposes. Nikolai isn’t dismayed at the prospect of being close to her.
“Make yourself at home,” is teasing, the warmth of the invitation softened by it.
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Not so with Nikolai. When he sprawls out, Alina's mind projects a solicitation to it that makes her flush. There is no way around the intimacy of it. She turns her face from him to hide the reaction, and there's not enough room to lie flat anyway, so she puts her back to him, carefully drawing her hair over her shoulder and out of his face.
She is careful not to touch him. As if she had not laid against his nakedness the night before. Then she tells herself that she is being too awkward about it all and does, in fact, scoot back towards him, to where she can feel the heat of his body and the folds of his clothes against her.
"Do you have enough room?" she asks quietly.
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“I do,” is quiet too, a murmur of an answer as he carefully drapes an arm across her waist. “Is this alright?”
He had spent what felt like hours wanting to put his arms around her last night. An eternity more as she slept leaning against him.
If the memory of it twists in his chest, raises up some clench of anxiety in him, it is curtailed before it can gain any kind of momentum.
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"Yeah." There's a scratchy quality to her voice that she barely recognizes. She settles closer against him, then, seeking out more of the warmth. With one arm tucked under the pillow, she moves her other on top of his, welcoming a more solid embrace.
Her breaths feel bigger, louder, with him so close. Can he tell that she's nervous? Can he hear her heart, like she can?
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A murmur against her nape, as his hand cinches tighter around her waist under the slight pressure of her hand.
"Breathe," is meant to be calming, steady the rasp of her breath. They are so close, and even if he couldn't hear, he could feel the rise and fall of her chest beneath his arm. "Nothing will happen here that you don't want. We can sleep, and you can leave whenever you wish."
She is on the outside of the bed, easy enough to swing her feet down to the ground and pull away from him. What he wants is for her to feel safe. Maybe for her to decide, to choose and to be able to give her what she wishes.
The press of her back against his chest brushes fabric against the burns. But even without that reminder, Nikolai wouldn;t be thinking of anything else but Alina, her hand braced on his chest, the look on her face as she'd studied the wax on his skin.
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What kind of person is afraid of a good thing? The giddy excitement shouldn't nauseate her like it does.
Some of the tension melts from her shoulder when he squeezes her closer. It's that little affirmation, more than his words, which seem to keenly anchor her in the moment instead of the abstracted anxieties that preoccupy her. She shuts her eyes, focuses on his voice.
"I'm here to comfort you," she reminds him, as she had in the castle. A task she keeps failing at because her own burdens have a way of sucking the oxygen out of the room. But there's a lilt of humor in these words. Like she knows how silly it is that they keep failing that.
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(cw: dubcon, risk of pregnancy, magic plan b)
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cw forced restraint, humiliation
cw: body shaming
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cw unplanned pregnancy contemplations
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(cw: refs to dubcon)
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