( a muscle in her jaw tics, tenses. the point of her chin goes wobbly like a crumbling floorboard, trying to support the weight of emotions housed inside of her — all these uninvited thoughts that make the hard lines in expression collapse dramatically, a foundation giving way. it's always been like this, since keramzin — locking her outbursts away until it's too much, until she can't barricade it behind carefully built walls and guarded doors. until something vital inside of her seems to outwardly break, leaving nothing but a messy spill for everyone to see.
a thousand ugly contortions distort her face as she fights to keep it at bay, the way she always has. don't let anyone see you cry. don't show weakness, even when you feel it. especially when you feel it. if little orphan girls aren't allowed to show weakness, what excuse do future queens and ruinous saints have? it's the kind of anguished show of emotion she knows the darkling would weaponize, in her shoes. the kind of humanity nikolai would strategize to show for sympathy. for alina, it's just —
raw, pathetic, like viscera left on the floor for someone to step in. nothing she wants alia — wants anyone — to drag their feet through, tracking around evidence that there is something fundamentally broken inside of alina starkov. her face goes splotchy, the tip of her nose ruddy. her arms in alia's hold shake like her bones are coming apart, a seam splitting. she chokes on a wet lump in her throat, staring blankly ahead at the wall, like she's addressing unseen ghosts — not the warm cradle of girl knelt in front of her, offering supplication alina fears reaching for. )
I don't want to. ( it bleats out of her, small, barely audible, feeling no larger than a child in the middle of a tantrum, kicking their feet over a chore. she jerks an arm out of alia's grip to wipe viciously at her leaky eyes, moisture splashing hotly against the back of her hand as she blinks. she forces herself to meet alia's eyes, despite it — despite the blur in her vision, only making out a haloed shine of curls. ) I don't want to do this. I don't want to talk about any of it.
Then don’t. [Alia says it immediately, lets Alina jerk away, lets her weep and shiver and fight with things that a girl from Arrakis, a girl from another world can’t even begin to fathom. She could, she could dig her fingers in and pry it free from the tangled web of Alina’s unknowable thoughts, could pull each thread free like sinew from a shredded throat, stretching stretching snapping. She could Know, and within her there’s a hissing, sneaking, snaking voice that demands that she does, that she invade Alina’s mind once more and pull her apart like a puzzle that defies explanation. The Other Memory whispers what an advantage it would be, to know Paul’s favored companion, to guide him back to the path with secrets Alina hasn’t disclosed yet, to manipulate them both like puppets on strings.
But Alina stands there, eyes red, nose running, tears on her cheeks, and Alia wishes wishes wishes she could tear the hissing voices out of her own mind instead, lay them at the other girl’s feet, like a half-wild cat leaving birds and mice on a doorstep, slashing open their bellies to reveal their gleaming viscera. Alia would burn it out if she could, if she were able, if she knew how, because nothing in the sand-choked, deadly desert world she knows is worthy of being here, in Alina’s room, witnessing her tears. Including Alia herself. Nothing but Paul.
She stays, though, both hands curling around the one left to press between callused palms, staying on her knees, looking upwards so earnestly her neck aches, her eyes water.] You don’t need to say anything. You don’t need to ever mention it again. It’s yours, and I won’t – I’ll never, never touch it again, Alina. Never. I promise. I promise you.
[She breathes in, shuddery, moves closer on her knees, the carpet rough against the blushing skin of her shins.] But don’t look away from me like you can’t bear the sight of me. Like I’m…some monster. Not you too, Alina.
( her first thought is a fool's one: alia atreides has never looked less like a monster. she looks — newborn kitten frail, like something left out in the rain for too long, shivering on alina's plush carpet and waiting to be given a home. shakily, she thumbs aside a marigold curl of hair matted to alia's forehead, to prove to herself there's no teeth and thorns waiting for her. )
You're not my monster. ( she stares until her eyes spill over with fat, leaky splashes of tears. until alia's silhouette goes blurry and haloed in candlelight, like it's testament to that fact — a truth that she's more golden thatches of sunlight than aleksander's shadows stirring between trees, cold and dead and barren as the withered thing in his chest. i don't know what you are, alina thinks miserably. she only knows one fact to be unfailingly true, and that's — ) You're Alia.
( quivery, her chest trembles around a wet intake of breath like she's choking on it, all waterlogged eyes and lungs. i've looked, says alina's burning, unfaltering state. i've seen. i am not like everyone else. i am not like anyone else. which is how she knows, without question: )
You're lying. ( it lacks the sharp cut of an accusation. it's just — butter-knife dull, resigned to weariness. ) You want it to be true, but it won't be.
You're going to wonder what must be so horrible that I won't share it with you. It's going to eat away at you until you either resent me for it, or fear me because of it. And then — then, one day, you'll say it's because I don't trust you, and I won't even have the decency to deny it.
Because I don't. I don't know that I can.
( because i'm not so sure i'm not the monster here. because — if mal can barely stand to look at her, how can she ask anyone else to endure her? she huffs out a humorless sound, embittered — with herself, with every disgusting secret and hideous truth mal had neither been equipped or unwilling to understand. everything she's kept hidden to keep the image of herself in his mind unruined.
uselessly, she scrubs a furious hand over her sternum, like it might loosen the tight knot that's formed. like it might smooth out her choppy, heaving breaths long enough to feel less like she's drowning underwater, long enough for her to choke on: )
I don't think I know how to trust anything anymore, and I hate that more than I hate this.
[You're Alia, as if that is so different than being a monster. As if there is any great change between the shadows that lick like fire at the corners of Alina’s mind and the girl kneeling before her, knees scuffed by the carpet, eyes red with tears she doesn't know how to weep. And Alia should welcome it, should slip the mantle of abomination onto her slender shoulders, let its weight etch into her bones, her sinew, let it make her into the image of something untouchable, something fierce and ferocious and empty inside, save for the holy fire of a war, a messiah, a man who cannot be Mahdi and brother both. Paul has no choice like Alia has no choice like – Alina has no choice.
But she chooses, still. She touches Alia's hair, fingers trembling in the curl of it, and she stares until her dark, bright doe eyes are as wet as Alia's and she chooses to stand and she chooses to speak and the words are no declaration of love or hope or light. They are as dark as the snarl of grief and fear and bitterness beneath Alia's breast, knotted around what could've been her heart, were she just a girl, just a daughter of the desert with blood in her veins instead of scourging fire.
And Alia chooses to, with her teeth in her lip and her eyes closing against her tears, turn her face into Alina’s hand and nuzzle the palm.] Then don't. [Soft, a breath, a press of bitten-raw lips to the heart of that hand.] Don't trust me, don't tell me, don't give me any more than what you already have, and I will dwell within it as long as you allow it, just-Alina. Be a girl or a knife or just a warmth in my bed and I will love you and I will follow you and I will fall to my knees before you still.
[Rocking back, looking up, the long pale line of her throat working on a swallow, Alia tosses back her hair and bares her teeth on a sob of a laugh.] Let me be a hound at the hearth of you, Alina, and it will be more than a thousand worlds could've offered. I don't ask you for more than that.
I won't. I can't swear anything else, but I can swear that, with all the blood and water in me
It's not fair. It's not fair that I can't give those things to you. It's not fair that you won't ask for them.
( it isn't fair that alia would offer so much and yet demand so little. maybe it should be liberating — love cut loose of its strings, of its expectations. instead, it's terrifying to consider, like — staring into the eyes of a myth she's convinced herself wasn't true. unconditional love, the ultimate fiction. as if alina could not disappoint her, could not fail her, the way she has so many others. as if there is nothing alia needs from her in exchange to be convinced to stay, to be convinced to see her as worthy.
it's not true, she wants to say, compelled to rip open the seams of a lie. look inside to prove it's an empty, hollow thing, before she dares to hope it's possible. they're too alike for alia to mean it — greedy girls who know what it means to be hungry, who know what it means to fear yourself, who know what it means to be loved for all the wrong reasons. the proof of that greed: alina's selfish refusal to tell alia that she deserves more than what she's asking for, bartering her loyalty just to be fed a crumb.
alina's throat cinches, a swallow bobbing around a wet lump in her throat. her fingers fall, return to scour the tears from her briny cheeks. )
You can't tell anyone. ( a quick, cracking burst. she doesn't have to say it, she thinks, for alia to know who she means. that's rawboned selfishness, too — like asking a heart not to communicate with the blood it pumps. ) Please. I don't want ...
( to be looked at as moth-eaten and worn. a glass thrown away and broken. alia might have spied the cracks and fissures she had been hiding, but — she can still preserve the image of alina starkov paul has in his mind. can still try her best to be perfect for him. she withers into herself again, without any better use for her arms, cradling her midsection for comfort. her hands fiddle, grasping the frills of her nightclothes between her fingers. )
I like the version of myself I've built here. With him. ( softer: ) With you. Whoever just-Alina is, I'm not ready to say goodbye to her.
[It isn’t fair, not at all, because Alia is lying, is offering what she cannot with every tearful inhale, is giving herself when she has never belonged to herself. She is a knife in the shape of a woman, and she will die buried beneath the ribs of Paul’s enemies, and she will live every moment until then serving the vision of Muad’Dib. Anything else is impossible, is a desert mirage born of thirst and desperation and sand in her eyes and spice in her mouth, a melange of lies that will crumble back to the dunes once it’s placed in the light. Alia cannot offer Alina anything, ever, and she knows it and she hates it and she does it anyway.
Because it’s also not fair that Alina is crying, that there are tears on her face like the tears Alia herself had never wept as an infant, slipping free of her mother quiet and solemn and fully self-possessed, never a child, never a girl, always and ever Reverend Mother and Bene Gesserit and Saint. She rises, knees wobbly, face reddened, hair loose and golden as she leans down, rests her forehead to Alina’s and reaches shaky hands to wipe away her tears.]
I won’t tell. [Soft, sweet, palms flat along the smooth shape of freckled cheekbones, settling to cradle a face that no design of mothers past could’ve created. There are stars in Alina’s tearful, reddened eyes, ones that drip over her lush lashes, and Alia ducks to kiss them, one two three, because to waste moisture is unthinkable. She breathes in the smell of sweat and sleep and girl, and her arms slip around Alina, like a child, reckless and bold and demanding, embracing without ever accepting the possibility of rejection.] Be just-Alina, and let me be just-Alia and I won’t tell anyone otherwise.
[Another lie, another promise she cannot keep, one hand petting over the tangle of Alina’s hair and kissing her eyes and her nose and whispering:] Please, don’t cry, Alina. I won’t tell anyone.
( alina's resistance crumbles in an instant, bones gone melty and buttery in alia's grip. weak, in a way she hasn't been allowed to be, knowing what it would mean for her survival in ravka — drawing attention the way a wounded deer draws hungry, exploitative glances. sagging forward, she hides her vulnerability away in the cave of alia's throat, as though the burden of keeping herself upright is too much weight to carry.
that, too, feels selfish. forcing alia to steady her, stealing whatever comfort she can while she clings to the gauzy fabric of alia's night dress like a child clutching at a soft blanket. like alia is the only safe thing she knows, and not another monster that could borrow into alina's skull, a worm devouring an apple core. pretending, maybe, that it pains her to wriggle through alina's insides.
it's unfair to even think it when alia looks so brittle, worn down by the ripple of pain she had caused, as if she lived the agony of alina's memories herself. still, the thought sends her into a fresh shudder, all spasming breaths like she's choking on seawater, airways clogged by the salty moisture of her own tears. for some time, it's the only evidence of alina's outburst at all, condemning herself to suffering quietly — until she untangles herself from alia's grip, to find the strap of her nightgown is soaked with tears and snot. alina starkov's unfortunate used tissue.
sheepishly, alina stares at the damp patch, too ashamed to let her eyes settle on alia's face. )
Sorry. ( the soft rasp almost seems too loud in the room, wedging itself into the silence. ) You can borrow one of mine.
( exhausted, she drags herself to the drawers in a corner. there's no point in feigning casualness now, after alia has seen her at her most fragile — but alina still tries, still clears her dry throat, as she plucks a cloud-soft nightgown of blue free. )
It's getting late. I think it's time I slept for the next century or so. ( i don't want to be alone. stay. ) But you could stay, if you wanted.
[Perhaps it means more because it’s so strange – Alina’s tears, Alia’s comfort, both zealously (selfishly) guarded in the worlds they come from. A knife cannot embrace, cannot stroke through the tangles of dark hair, cannot banish the monsters with a tuneless, near-inaudible hum of old, old songs. And, of course there are unknown reasons that Alina does not let her tears fall, and Alia can feel them in the room alongside her own ghosts, side by side, like sentinels, like soldiers in formation. Waiting and watching.
Let them. Let them be silent and dead and gone, banished with the steady dampening of her shoulder, with the shiver of Alina in her arms, a raw, tender, vulnerable thing that few have ever seen. Alia is selfish to her core, because she craves that, as painful and wrenching as each sob is, because they are given to her, only to her, all the agony that Alina sees as ugly like handfuls of gems, like water in the desert, weighty teardrops spilled onto outstretched, hungry hands.
When Alina pulls away, Alia is dry-eyed, but oddly sedate, like the nearness, the embrace has sated something in her she didn’t know was starving. The glance at her shoulder is echoed, some words about the gift of moisture given so freely building in her throat, then dying away at the rustle of blue fabric as it’s drawn out of the drawer. Alia customarily avoids color, sticks to white and grey and beige, the colors of sand and bones and sunbleached skies.
Blue is for water, for warm sunlight and cool ponds, for life and growing things. Without her conscious consent, Alia reaches out, touches the soft hem of the nightgown, smiles.] I’d like to stay. [Soft, to the fabric first, pooling cornflower-blue in Alina’s hands, rubbed gently between two fingertips. Then, eyes nearly the same shade, lifting up, hopeful and a touch shy.] I want to stay. With you. Can I?
( slowly, alina's eyes trip over the landmarks of alia's face. the shyness is all wrong, alina thinks, like — finding a freckle that hadn't been there before, new and unaccounted for, despite her dedication to counting every mole in the constellation atreides, tracing her own little star chart of alia and paul. it's just off enough that it gives alina pause, forced to recalibrate what she knows of paul's baby sister, softer than she'd given her credit for.
or maybe not soft at all. maybe this is just what alina does, what she can't stop herself from doing lately, wearing down even the strongest people she's known, wrongly thinking even the toughest stone won't erode, no matter how many times she batters her body against it. she's nostalgic, suddenly, for what's missing — alia's unbroken confidence, powerful even as she had pretended to play the part of a penitent. the daring knife-edge of her smile, showing herself to be untameable, even as she had come to heel between alina's legs. submitting, but not without the privileged right of a woman that belonged there.
anything that might prove to her that nothing has changed. she searches for a heartbeat longer, before she lets the silky nightgown pool into alia's palms, like water cupped in her open hands. )
I won't be good company.
( a hoarse murmur, if not a warning. wanting her to stay. wanting to hide away before she looks closer to realize alina's bright, sunny happiness has blinded both her and paul from the uglier truths of who, exactly, she is. she pads a quiet path to the bed, peeling back the sheets in invitation, peeking back at alia. )
But I wouldn't turn you away, if you chose to stay.
( alia's choice. alina doesn't watch her for long, in the end, on the chance she changes her mind — so she doesn't have to see the moment where she decides it isn't worth staying. instead, she slinks into the bed, already making herself a silky cocoon from the blankets, and looks into the empty space beside her. waits, her heart beating a slow, anxious drum in her chest. )
[Being with you is enough. That’s what Alia wants to say, wants to find the words to reach out through the cautious wariness in Alina’s tear-streaked face, to banish it like a handful of spice on a high wind, dispersed into air, into nothingness. It isn’t enough to chase away the grief, the darkness she’d caught a glimpse of in Alina’s mind, lurking like a great, rumbling beast beneath the surface – Alia wants to rend it to pieces, wants to destroy it with her teeth and her rage and her love, all of it bloody, all of it messy, all of it monstrous.
For now, though, she watches Alina cross back to the bed, slip beneath the covers in her soft, silky nightgown, eyes bright in the darkness, tucked beneath the blankets and staring at the still-empty sheets. The way she braces herself, takes slow breaths, the way her pulse beats in the air – she knows disappointment, she knows loneliness, and the steeling of her slender body is an oft-repeated act. Alina anticipates the worst, so she won’t be as hurt, as thoroughly destroyed when it happens.
Suddenly Alia can’t pull her tear-stained nightgown off fast enough, hair tumbling around her shoulders as she does, as she leaves the white fabric bunched and crumpled on the ground. The blue nightgown is pulled on – backwards, at first, Alia distracted by stumbling after Alina to the bed, wrenching the fabric around and shoving her arms through the sleeves even as she flops down onto the empty sheets. Slightly breathless, flushed, seeking out the warmth of Alina’s body that haunts her own like a ghost, both arms slipping out and seeking to tug the other girl close once more.]
Thank you. [Soft, snuggled close, knees bumping Alina’s beneath the cocoon of covers.] I’m – I want to stay. [Alia reaches up, smooths back the tangle of dark hair, pets it, like soothing a fearful pet, a tearful child, spooked by a thunderstorm – there, there, you’re safe, you’re okay, I’m here, I’m here.] You can sleep, I won’t go anywhere.
( shamefully, her stomach twists into cramping knots. she had thought the worst of what alia might do is leave her in this too-big bed in this too-big room with alina's too-big thoughts, giving her what she had wanted in the worst way — time spent inside the attic of her mind, alone to sort through the cobwebs and memories she's shoved into compartments. now, she sees herself splayed out vulnerably beside the same girl that had trespassed on it, sees herself made soft and defenseless by the promise sleep. sees the hinges of her mind cracked temptingly open, enough room for alia to slip inside as aleksander had, at night, an undetected shadow prowling in her head.
her throat squeezes around her swallowed fear, trying to digest it, as she reaches to cinch her fingers at the hem of alia's (alina's) rumpled nightgown. she hadn't intended it to be a test — but she thinks, maybe, she's designed it that way. set alia up to prove not all second chances are wasted. or — maybe she's just exposing herself to it like mithridatism, ingesting small doses of betrayal, so she can get used to the bitter taste of it in the back of her throat. so the symptoms are less and less potent, less effective at corroding her insides, over time.
even knowing the danger of laying beside her, alina can't stop herself from leaning into her like night-blooming jasmine, both craving and repelled by the threat of the sun. silent, she nods, afraid of what words will push past her mouth if she speaks. the fingers that hold fast to alia's hem slip beneath, innocently skirting up the slim line of alia's thigh, past her hip. they fan out against the notches of alia's spine, feeling the distant vibrations of alia's heart thump an echo against alina's palm. skin-to-skin contact, the way babies only stop their fussing once they're tucked into that warmth.
alina's sniffles dry up in the quiet of the room, too, small body slinking down in the sheets until she can nose between alia's breast. rise, fall. in, out. eventually, alina's breath peters out to the same pattern, comforting herself to sleep to the lullaby of alia's inhales and exhales. )
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a thousand ugly contortions distort her face as she fights to keep it at bay, the way she always has. don't let anyone see you cry. don't show weakness, even when you feel it. especially when you feel it. if little orphan girls aren't allowed to show weakness, what excuse do future queens and ruinous saints have? it's the kind of anguished show of emotion she knows the darkling would weaponize, in her shoes. the kind of humanity nikolai would strategize to show for sympathy. for alina, it's just —
raw, pathetic, like viscera left on the floor for someone to step in. nothing she wants alia — wants anyone — to drag their feet through, tracking around evidence that there is something fundamentally broken inside of alina starkov. her face goes splotchy, the tip of her nose ruddy. her arms in alia's hold shake like her bones are coming apart, a seam splitting. she chokes on a wet lump in her throat, staring blankly ahead at the wall, like she's addressing unseen ghosts — not the warm cradle of girl knelt in front of her, offering supplication alina fears reaching for. )
I don't want to. ( it bleats out of her, small, barely audible, feeling no larger than a child in the middle of a tantrum, kicking their feet over a chore. she jerks an arm out of alia's grip to wipe viciously at her leaky eyes, moisture splashing hotly against the back of her hand as she blinks. she forces herself to meet alia's eyes, despite it — despite the blur in her vision, only making out a haloed shine of curls. ) I don't want to do this. I don't want to talk about any of it.
no subject
But Alina stands there, eyes red, nose running, tears on her cheeks, and Alia wishes wishes wishes she could tear the hissing voices out of her own mind instead, lay them at the other girl’s feet, like a half-wild cat leaving birds and mice on a doorstep, slashing open their bellies to reveal their gleaming viscera. Alia would burn it out if she could, if she were able, if she knew how, because nothing in the sand-choked, deadly desert world she knows is worthy of being here, in Alina’s room, witnessing her tears. Including Alia herself. Nothing but Paul.
She stays, though, both hands curling around the one left to press between callused palms, staying on her knees, looking upwards so earnestly her neck aches, her eyes water.] You don’t need to say anything. You don’t need to ever mention it again. It’s yours, and I won’t – I’ll never, never touch it again, Alina. Never. I promise. I promise you.
[She breathes in, shuddery, moves closer on her knees, the carpet rough against the blushing skin of her shins.] But don’t look away from me like you can’t bear the sight of me. Like I’m…some monster. Not you too, Alina.
no subject
You're not my monster. ( she stares until her eyes spill over with fat, leaky splashes of tears. until alia's silhouette goes blurry and haloed in candlelight, like it's testament to that fact — a truth that she's more golden thatches of sunlight than aleksander's shadows stirring between trees, cold and dead and barren as the withered thing in his chest. i don't know what you are, alina thinks miserably. she only knows one fact to be unfailingly true, and that's — ) You're Alia.
( quivery, her chest trembles around a wet intake of breath like she's choking on it, all waterlogged eyes and lungs. i've looked, says alina's burning, unfaltering state. i've seen. i am not like everyone else. i am not like anyone else. which is how she knows, without question: )
You're lying. ( it lacks the sharp cut of an accusation. it's just — butter-knife dull, resigned to weariness. ) You want it to be true, but it won't be.
You're going to wonder what must be so horrible that I won't share it with you. It's going to eat away at you until you either resent me for it, or fear me because of it. And then — then, one day, you'll say it's because I don't trust you, and I won't even have the decency to deny it.
Because I don't. I don't know that I can.
( because i'm not so sure i'm not the monster here. because — if mal can barely stand to look at her, how can she ask anyone else to endure her? she huffs out a humorless sound, embittered — with herself, with every disgusting secret and hideous truth mal had neither been equipped or unwilling to understand. everything she's kept hidden to keep the image of herself in his mind unruined.
uselessly, she scrubs a furious hand over her sternum, like it might loosen the tight knot that's formed. like it might smooth out her choppy, heaving breaths long enough to feel less like she's drowning underwater, long enough for her to choke on: )
I don't think I know how to trust anything anymore, and I hate that more than I hate this.
no subject
But she chooses, still. She touches Alia's hair, fingers trembling in the curl of it, and she stares until her dark, bright doe eyes are as wet as Alia's and she chooses to stand and she chooses to speak and the words are no declaration of love or hope or light. They are as dark as the snarl of grief and fear and bitterness beneath Alia's breast, knotted around what could've been her heart, were she just a girl, just a daughter of the desert with blood in her veins instead of scourging fire.
And Alia chooses to, with her teeth in her lip and her eyes closing against her tears, turn her face into Alina’s hand and nuzzle the palm.] Then don't. [Soft, a breath, a press of bitten-raw lips to the heart of that hand.] Don't trust me, don't tell me, don't give me any more than what you already have, and I will dwell within it as long as you allow it, just-Alina. Be a girl or a knife or just a warmth in my bed and I will love you and I will follow you and I will fall to my knees before you still.
[Rocking back, looking up, the long pale line of her throat working on a swallow, Alia tosses back her hair and bares her teeth on a sob of a laugh.] Let me be a hound at the hearth of you, Alina, and it will be more than a thousand worlds could've offered. I don't ask you for more than that.
I won't. I can't swear anything else, but I can swear that, with all the blood and water in me
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( it isn't fair that alia would offer so much and yet demand so little. maybe it should be liberating — love cut loose of its strings, of its expectations. instead, it's terrifying to consider, like — staring into the eyes of a myth she's convinced herself wasn't true. unconditional love, the ultimate fiction. as if alina could not disappoint her, could not fail her, the way she has so many others. as if there is nothing alia needs from her in exchange to be convinced to stay, to be convinced to see her as worthy.
it's not true, she wants to say, compelled to rip open the seams of a lie. look inside to prove it's an empty, hollow thing, before she dares to hope it's possible. they're too alike for alia to mean it — greedy girls who know what it means to be hungry, who know what it means to fear yourself, who know what it means to be loved for all the wrong reasons. the proof of that greed: alina's selfish refusal to tell alia that she deserves more than what she's asking for, bartering her loyalty just to be fed a crumb.
alina's throat cinches, a swallow bobbing around a wet lump in her throat. her fingers fall, return to scour the tears from her briny cheeks. )
You can't tell anyone. ( a quick, cracking burst. she doesn't have to say it, she thinks, for alia to know who she means. that's rawboned selfishness, too — like asking a heart not to communicate with the blood it pumps. ) Please. I don't want ...
( to be looked at as moth-eaten and worn. a glass thrown away and broken. alia might have spied the cracks and fissures she had been hiding, but — she can still preserve the image of alina starkov paul has in his mind. can still try her best to be perfect for him. she withers into herself again, without any better use for her arms, cradling her midsection for comfort. her hands fiddle, grasping the frills of her nightclothes between her fingers. )
I like the version of myself I've built here. With him. ( softer: ) With you. Whoever just-Alina is, I'm not ready to say goodbye to her.
no subject
Because it’s also not fair that Alina is crying, that there are tears on her face like the tears Alia herself had never wept as an infant, slipping free of her mother quiet and solemn and fully self-possessed, never a child, never a girl, always and ever Reverend Mother and Bene Gesserit and Saint. She rises, knees wobbly, face reddened, hair loose and golden as she leans down, rests her forehead to Alina’s and reaches shaky hands to wipe away her tears.]
I won’t tell. [Soft, sweet, palms flat along the smooth shape of freckled cheekbones, settling to cradle a face that no design of mothers past could’ve created. There are stars in Alina’s tearful, reddened eyes, ones that drip over her lush lashes, and Alia ducks to kiss them, one two three, because to waste moisture is unthinkable. She breathes in the smell of sweat and sleep and girl, and her arms slip around Alina, like a child, reckless and bold and demanding, embracing without ever accepting the possibility of rejection.] Be just-Alina, and let me be just-Alia and I won’t tell anyone otherwise.
[Another lie, another promise she cannot keep, one hand petting over the tangle of Alina’s hair and kissing her eyes and her nose and whispering:] Please, don’t cry, Alina. I won’t tell anyone.
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that, too, feels selfish. forcing alia to steady her, stealing whatever comfort she can while she clings to the gauzy fabric of alia's night dress like a child clutching at a soft blanket. like alia is the only safe thing she knows, and not another monster that could borrow into alina's skull, a worm devouring an apple core. pretending, maybe, that it pains her to wriggle through alina's insides.
it's unfair to even think it when alia looks so brittle, worn down by the ripple of pain she had caused, as if she lived the agony of alina's memories herself. still, the thought sends her into a fresh shudder, all spasming breaths like she's choking on seawater, airways clogged by the salty moisture of her own tears. for some time, it's the only evidence of alina's outburst at all, condemning herself to suffering quietly — until she untangles herself from alia's grip, to find the strap of her nightgown is soaked with tears and snot. alina starkov's unfortunate used tissue.
sheepishly, alina stares at the damp patch, too ashamed to let her eyes settle on alia's face. )
Sorry. ( the soft rasp almost seems too loud in the room, wedging itself into the silence. ) You can borrow one of mine.
( exhausted, she drags herself to the drawers in a corner. there's no point in feigning casualness now, after alia has seen her at her most fragile — but alina still tries, still clears her dry throat, as she plucks a cloud-soft nightgown of blue free. )
It's getting late. I think it's time I slept for the next century or so. ( i don't want to be alone. stay. ) But you could stay, if you wanted.
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Let them. Let them be silent and dead and gone, banished with the steady dampening of her shoulder, with the shiver of Alina in her arms, a raw, tender, vulnerable thing that few have ever seen. Alia is selfish to her core, because she craves that, as painful and wrenching as each sob is, because they are given to her, only to her, all the agony that Alina sees as ugly like handfuls of gems, like water in the desert, weighty teardrops spilled onto outstretched, hungry hands.
When Alina pulls away, Alia is dry-eyed, but oddly sedate, like the nearness, the embrace has sated something in her she didn’t know was starving. The glance at her shoulder is echoed, some words about the gift of moisture given so freely building in her throat, then dying away at the rustle of blue fabric as it’s drawn out of the drawer. Alia customarily avoids color, sticks to white and grey and beige, the colors of sand and bones and sunbleached skies.
Blue is for water, for warm sunlight and cool ponds, for life and growing things. Without her conscious consent, Alia reaches out, touches the soft hem of the nightgown, smiles.] I’d like to stay. [Soft, to the fabric first, pooling cornflower-blue in Alina’s hands, rubbed gently between two fingertips. Then, eyes nearly the same shade, lifting up, hopeful and a touch shy.] I want to stay. With you. Can I?
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or maybe not soft at all. maybe this is just what alina does, what she can't stop herself from doing lately, wearing down even the strongest people she's known, wrongly thinking even the toughest stone won't erode, no matter how many times she batters her body against it. she's nostalgic, suddenly, for what's missing — alia's unbroken confidence, powerful even as she had pretended to play the part of a penitent. the daring knife-edge of her smile, showing herself to be untameable, even as she had come to heel between alina's legs. submitting, but not without the privileged right of a woman that belonged there.
anything that might prove to her that nothing has changed. she searches for a heartbeat longer, before she lets the silky nightgown pool into alia's palms, like water cupped in her open hands. )
I won't be good company.
( a hoarse murmur, if not a warning. wanting her to stay. wanting to hide away before she looks closer to realize alina's bright, sunny happiness has blinded both her and paul from the uglier truths of who, exactly, she is. she pads a quiet path to the bed, peeling back the sheets in invitation, peeking back at alia. )
But I wouldn't turn you away, if you chose to stay.
( alia's choice. alina doesn't watch her for long, in the end, on the chance she changes her mind — so she doesn't have to see the moment where she decides it isn't worth staying. instead, she slinks into the bed, already making herself a silky cocoon from the blankets, and looks into the empty space beside her. waits, her heart beating a slow, anxious drum in her chest. )
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For now, though, she watches Alina cross back to the bed, slip beneath the covers in her soft, silky nightgown, eyes bright in the darkness, tucked beneath the blankets and staring at the still-empty sheets. The way she braces herself, takes slow breaths, the way her pulse beats in the air – she knows disappointment, she knows loneliness, and the steeling of her slender body is an oft-repeated act. Alina anticipates the worst, so she won’t be as hurt, as thoroughly destroyed when it happens.
Suddenly Alia can’t pull her tear-stained nightgown off fast enough, hair tumbling around her shoulders as she does, as she leaves the white fabric bunched and crumpled on the ground. The blue nightgown is pulled on – backwards, at first, Alia distracted by stumbling after Alina to the bed, wrenching the fabric around and shoving her arms through the sleeves even as she flops down onto the empty sheets. Slightly breathless, flushed, seeking out the warmth of Alina’s body that haunts her own like a ghost, both arms slipping out and seeking to tug the other girl close once more.]
Thank you. [Soft, snuggled close, knees bumping Alina’s beneath the cocoon of covers.] I’m – I want to stay. [Alia reaches up, smooths back the tangle of dark hair, pets it, like soothing a fearful pet, a tearful child, spooked by a thunderstorm – there, there, you’re safe, you’re okay, I’m here, I’m here.] You can sleep, I won’t go anywhere.
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her throat squeezes around her swallowed fear, trying to digest it, as she reaches to cinch her fingers at the hem of alia's (alina's) rumpled nightgown. she hadn't intended it to be a test — but she thinks, maybe, she's designed it that way. set alia up to prove not all second chances are wasted. or — maybe she's just exposing herself to it like mithridatism, ingesting small doses of betrayal, so she can get used to the bitter taste of it in the back of her throat. so the symptoms are less and less potent, less effective at corroding her insides, over time.
even knowing the danger of laying beside her, alina can't stop herself from leaning into her like night-blooming jasmine, both craving and repelled by the threat of the sun. silent, she nods, afraid of what words will push past her mouth if she speaks. the fingers that hold fast to alia's hem slip beneath, innocently skirting up the slim line of alia's thigh, past her hip. they fan out against the notches of alia's spine, feeling the distant vibrations of alia's heart thump an echo against alina's palm. skin-to-skin contact, the way babies only stop their fussing once they're tucked into that warmth.
alina's sniffles dry up in the quiet of the room, too, small body slinking down in the sheets until she can nose between alia's breast. rise, fall. in, out. eventually, alina's breath peters out to the same pattern, comforting herself to sleep to the lullaby of alia's inhales and exhales. )